I consider myself a fisherman - but fly fishing is my favorite type of fishing. There were a few seasons where yes, I still owned gear rods, but never fished them. A few years where I *only* fished flies, and probably would've claimed being a fly fisherman back then. Now - I'm finding my level - I spend probably 50% of the time with a flyrod in hand, and the other, it's gear. I probably made 15 trips between September and February this year targeting salmon or steelhead. I drifted eggs. I drifted yarn/corkies, yarn by itself, yarn balls (giant glo-bugs). I fished bobber & jigs, I fished bobber & bait, I threw spinners, I threw spoons, and I threw plugs. The most I got were a few hook ups that lasted less than 10 seconds a piece. I was the luckiest out of my companions this year. Damn near each of those trips, I was hoping to get my nephew - youngfishtyler - into his first salmon or steelie. He's done well with bass and panfish and stocker trout - but I wanted to get him into his first BIG fish. Nada. He wound up getting the hershey squirts our first trip out. Second or third trip out, he fell and broke his finger. Another trip, he twisted his ankle. (Maybe that was the same trip as the broken finger, details are fuzzy).
I lost a bunch of jigs, spoons, a few spinners, and a few drift rigs. Lost some expensive bobbers, lost some home made bobbers. It sucked. I have not landed a big fish in 3 years - last one I got was a native salmon on the Wilson, that came to a pink & white jig...
I WISH I could say my lack of success with the salmonids was due to the fact that I was swinging a spey setup and thus not fishing THE most productive methods - but I wasn't. I just had/have really bad mojo or something. We fished the same waters other people had/have fished since and caught fish. The thing that always got under my skin - was after spending 10 hrs on the water to drive home fishless, I'd find a post on sites like this one, or iFish, of guys grinning ear to ear, holding big, bright fish caught from the same rivers we were fishing, or worse - from the rivers were WERE going to fish but decided against it in favor of another river.
We've pounded the banks of the Wilson the most this season, the Clack was the 2nd most fished water for us, and nada.
Steelhead and salmon, I have come to the conclusion - are figments. They don't exist, and anyone claiming to have caught one is a damn liar. Photographs of fish? Those are 12" long rainbows and cutthroats, that have been blown up, and colored differently thanks to the magic of photoshop, (some might be kokes). That's my story and I'm sticking to it - at least until I get another salmon or steelie...