I am a disciple for steelhead on the swung fly.

For me, and those like me, there is something of the mystical embodied in these fish. Here today, gone tomorrow, as fleeting and unexpected as best moments. Each one you find is different in appearance and behavior, often holding in unusual waters and undertaking lunatic efforts to throw the hook. They leave us with the heavy dread of a slack line, and they provide the triumph of cradling, actually touching, an embodiment of wildness that has somehow met us halfway. That's good stuff.

If you want an intro to the significance of wild steelhead, watch Shane Anderson's documentary. It freaking nails it.

There has been a lot of talk about the iconic status of this fish in Washington state, and it is all well deserved. They represent the best, and the fact that they are disappearing makes each encounter that much more precious. Say what you will of the plight of our fisheries, who's to blame and how to fix it. It is a perplexing problem. I don't have answers, but I am not neutral. Hatcheries should go, especially on waters where there is a good chance of recovery. Wild fish, and everything that promotes them, should be defended. They are exquisite, unspoilt, better than anything we can fashion. And yes, I do think how you fish says a lot about you as an angler, and that too is important especially as our resources are dwindling. No matter what technique you use, taking only what you need for a good day and showing respect for the fishery are essential.

I ended up somewhere between a happy-go-lucky fisher who slays with indiscriminate techniques and a purist who will do nothing but snorkel to catch a glimpse of the wild. Too zealous a fly caster to prefer fishing with a float, I am also too blunt to engage the river on a purely intellectual plane. Whereas a river biologist might peer through a snorkel mask and feel a singular excitement stab him in the brain, I would probably be staring blankly and thinking about tacos. Neanderthalish, I need the grab. The river has to actually try to rip the rod out of my hand to convince me it's worth it.

Tough subject, but does the same thing happen in my caveman cortex when that bobber buries? The same rush, the same incredible focus, heightened senses and the wonder and the awe and the gratitude that inevitably follow? Maybe if it did I could ignore capitalizing on the unique weakness of the steelhead—the fact that they chase the swung fly! Yes, they operate off a brain the size of a walnut, but they also are alphas that chase, with curiosity, what you present to them! What is cooler than that?!

I got here after taking a winding, uphill path with scant initial reward. It's hard at first. Lots and lots of fishless days early on, struggling with techniques, struggling with locations. Now that I've attained a tiny bit of experience chasing these fish, I don't know what motivated me to do it. It's painful going days without a grab. It's painful when the weather works against you and brings calamity to the hydrograph. Perfect holding lies vanish in pea-soup clarity, maybe on the only trip you have for months. You stick with the swing for a mere handful of grabs when you could have more if you put the spey rod away. Coming into the shop and hearing that someone went 3/5 on the same water you were on really smarts. There's no question that lucky angler got into some nice fish, more than you found with your highfalutin' spey casting. Nope. It's not easy.

I haven't caught thousands of fish. I don't know that I ever will. All I can really say is that every single memory that involves a steelhead in my life is a good one. They are distinct and I can point to them with remarkable clarity.A colored up buck on a hot orange GP under November twilight. A sulking behemoth on a Morrish Trailer Trash at Picnic Table which was not landed, in fact, he cleaned my clock. The early morning Deschutes hen that for some reason wanted only a Skykomish Sunrise.

The first memory, shortly after I moved to Seattle, is also good one. I found a job at a local shop right about the time Dec Hogan was getting going with A Passion For Steelhead. He came into the shop and gave a talk for the launch of his book. Approachable and authentic, I remember Dec telling the crowd that swinging for steelhead was, at it's worst, a low-numbers game that's worth every single moment. One of Dec's gifts is being plainspoken. He trades in lore. It made an impression.

Armed with my new 8143 CND Solstice, a blue-and-black signature intruder, Teton demo reel with an early Airflo NW Skagit head, a 15 ft. Type III tip, and hand-me-down Borger boots from a generous shop employee, I found myself on the Skykomish river in December. This was a winter long after anglers were barred from fishing in March and April, and I didn't have an inkling as to what we had lost. After all, steelhead were only in books.

The strange and wondrous thing about getting a grab on the swing is that the process is neck-and-neck in importance with the outcome. If you do everything right in the process (fly, knot, read water, cast, appropriate presentation, swing, finish, step), really commit to it, the fish actually just occurs. It happens to you. By virtue of the fact that you are there, a fish will come to hand, and not because of one particular action you undertook to try and hook a fish. You land fish because you engaged the process, learned the techniques, and committed to the culture of swinging up a fish. You learned from Dec Hogan, Trey Combs, Lani Waller, Simon Gawesworth, John Shewey, Ed Ward, Tom Larimer, your local fly shop and your fishy friends, then you went out to try it. There aren't any shortcuts.

It's often said that fly fishing is not about catching fish, which is completely untrue. It is totally about catching fish, it would be stupid if it weren't. The difference between swinging for steel and any other type of fly fishing is how it happens. A sort of accidental magic, the fish appears, jolting you out of the sequence and ripping line off your reel. You don't even have to set the hook on the best takes. And on the creeping, tentative takes, time slows down. Often the fish is moving so fast in its initial freak out that your line is curving downstream while the fish is jumping upstream, which is cool beyond words. It's the unmistakable feeling of connection. I have no idea what it does to my brain but it's unequivocally good. Really, really good.

My very first take was no different, save that I had the reoccurring thought throughout the fight,"Is this a steelhead? This must be a steelhead! I think this is how it happens? Yes! Holy shit! I am playing a steelhead!"A little out-of-body, but totally tuned in. A few moments later, I had this little hatchery buck on the bank.

A fellow angler who happened to be there took this shot.

Ha, pretty intense! Of course, at the time I had no idea what I was holding, both as a hatchery fish and a harbinger of what was to come in my life. I wrote down everything I remembered about the fight shortly after I landed that fish, and the most important phrase from that memory was this: it felt lucky. And so has every fish I've encountered since then.

I'm nowhere close to an authority on these fish. Among those who really swing flies well, I don't catch very many and I make lots of mistakes. I'm just a guy who got bit by the steelhead bug. I'm right at the beginning of my pursuit of these fish, at least I hope to be. It's gonna be a lot tougher for me and those like me. We are going to have to work harder, go farther, spend more money for fewer opportunities and fish through more pointless arguments that take away from the main point: we are lucky to be able to pursue wild steelhead.