Challis, ID.- Steel Head

This past weekend a few friends (Mike, Jason, Kendall) and I headed to Challis, Idaho to try and get into some steel head on the Salmon River. Past fishing reports were looking promising and we were all very excited. I had been fishing once a few years back with no luck and I myself was very excited with anticipation with the number of fish that had been reported.


We arrived late Friday evening and our first stop was to an old friend Carla Young. Mike has known Carla for years now and she is the kindest person I have meet in quite some time. Her home is always open and the weekends the steelies and salmon are running her basement is full with fellow fishermen. Thank you Carla (and Jim) for your hospitality, knowledge, advice and yes the legend is true! This year I had Carla sign my hat, which did pay off for this trip and hopefully for fishing trips to come.

We started our day early and we were on the water by 7:00 a.m. We had permission to fish on some private property, Thank You Allen, by the time we had our rigs set up Mike was in the water and with his first cast, fish on!! This brut was the biggest fish of the trip with a big old hook jaw, very think and heavy. My best guess would be 30 to 32 inches and a good 10 to 12 lbs. He was a native male that we released, not after taking a few pictures. Not long after Mike hooked into his fish, with a few words of advice and demonstration it was my turn. I hooked into my first steelie, a nice 23” hen and she too was a native. Over all the day was GREAT!! We were all able to hook into fish, bring some home and release a few, not to mention, we could have feed an army with the number of sucker fish we caught! I caught most of my fish with a green butted skunk fly and dropping a gummy egg pattern. We had luck with all sorts of salmon flies, but it seemed the black flies caught more steel head.