Join our very own Sam Lungren in his native environment—knee deep in a frigid steelhead creek. An outdoors writer, adventure trip leader, and West Coast native, Sam has chasing these fabled fish for 20 years and even wrote his master’s thesis about the interplay between native and hatchery steelhead. The fishing for them he experienced last year with the Alaska Steelhead Company was the best he’s ever seen.
This outfit provides access to a uniquely target-rich environment, almost unheard of these days, where anglers can expect to encounter fish almost every day. It’s not the days or weeks of unanswered swings you’re used to. Whether you can convert those fly grabs to tail grabs is up to you, however.
First-time steelhead anglers will appreciate the contained environment found in some of the smaller streams the outfit can reach. Imagine your favorite trout creek back home. The fish will likely be some 10 times larger with proportionate fighting strength, but you’ll figure it out. Maybe.
Seasoned steelheaders will marvel at the diversity: wide, swift, glacial flows to narrow, woody rivulets to winding, grassy cutbanks you might expect in the Midwest. All host surprisingly healthy runs of entirely wild fish averaging in the 8- to 12-pound range but ranging much higher. Both Spey swinging and nymphing are practical and available here, often in the same runs. Conventional anglers are welcome too, with the ability to drift, float fish, or spoon the same waters in much the same way.
Spaces are limited, so please contact sam@midcurrent.com soon to discuss coming along.
