A Summer Steelhead Story

Summertime as an Idaho fly fishing guide is a splendid life; long, hot, full days working on stunning western trout streams for four months out of the year.

Throughout the season, we are trying to keep our mind fixated on brown, rainbow, cutthroat trout, and happy clients. Yet nothing can distract our imagination enough, especially when its living thousands of miles away.

That imagination has us standing in an unfamiliar, magical river with a two-handed fly rod, running line tight against our finger…

And ultimately that imagination won out. We bailed for two weeks mid-season – took the pay cut, and vanished. Just like that, two young spey dudes, living out of the truck, all for that one fish driving them mad enough to make a decision like this one.

Instead of living fast in guide mode, it was moving slow, spey casting, sweating through t-shirts and stepping through a steelhead run. Everything felt backwards, but perfect all at once.

The Fall run was what we knew best, so this was our first dance with the summer steelhead – chrome and fresh from the ocean, holding in glacial-blue water beneath rainforest cliffs and otherworldly ferns.

As the drive west stretched, the mountains climbed higher, rivers swelled with tide, and the air thickened with ocean mist. Each mile, each new river system felt like a drumbeat pulling us closer to the madness we’d been craving.

But steelhead don’t play easy. Run after run, maps scratched with dirty fingers, we chased anyway. Still, we never felt out of place – nights ended full of adrenaline, ready for whatever the next day would throw at us. Each day, we’d knew we were getting a step closer to crossing paths with a steelhead.

Finally, the energy shifted. We found the water that pulsed with life, the zone where fish were moving through. Suddenly we fell into a groove where every swing, every run felt electric, and our confidence in every cast was limitless.

Dalton came tight to his first summer run, coastal steelhead. The river erupted. We screamed in joy, we cussed, we laughed – we’d finally tailed the fish that destroyed our routine all summer long.

The following days burned into us, there was nothing that could stop us. There’s many factors that play into this swing game that is addicting, but for us, finding that groove, that confidence as you’re stepping into every run knowing it’s going to go down, is an unmatched feeling in fishing.

Time moves so fast, the cast, the hookup, the runs, its all a ‘blur.’

In those two weeks we landed six fish. To outsiders that’s “not many,” but in steelhead math it’s a gold mine. Every single one felt like a miracle, all the miles driven, all the hours spent swinging flies, it was all worth it.

Steelhead are a fish that leave a footprint in your memory unlike any other species, the power within their tail, the chaos throughout the fights, the mystery of their travel – just to name a few of the many details that make us obsessed. Steelhead are wildness embodied, and perfect in every which way.

Two trout guides from Idaho, leaving their routine behind to chase summer steelhead in rivers they’d never stepped foot in. Swinging water they’d only ever read about, dreamed about. There’s never a better time in this life, than now – we just wanted to turn imagination into reality, so we did it.

Thank you Loop for supporting us with fly rods and reels that were put through the ringer. We tested them to the maximum, driving them up and down the worst of roads, but they gave us confidence in every swing.

We came home sunburned, worn, but on fire. We knew this was only the first of many more adventures steelhead would take us on, and that this is only the beginning of our journey as spey anglers.