steelhead feeding habits???

[jerole1978]

Anyone know about what time of day steelhead feed the most? I'm sure it's early morning but I just wanted to verify if that's true..

[hwchubb]

Except when they grab in the middle of the day! Seriously, the bite seems to get a little better in the last hour of the day, but my new favorite run on the American is a 3-4 foot deep riffle lower down on the river that didn't seem to pick up until about 10 AM. I used to take a siesta on the Trinity from lunch until the last couple of hours of light, until a buddy showed me that you can do well at 2 o'clock on a sunny October afternoon.

Low light and dark fly / dark day, bright fly / bright day are good guidelines, but a long way from hard fast rules. The best time to be on the water is always whatever time you can be there.

Oh, and they always grab better on the first cast.

[jerole1978]

Thank you for the input, I appreciate it. I'm at sailor bar right now trying took get a bead on them as we speak

[mattv-mcfly]

There are so many factors when and why steelhead bite. Weather, water temp, match the hatch, flows, etc. In my experience fishing, I find that the weather is the biggest factor when if comes to steelies on the feed. On overcast days the fish will bite all day and on sunny days the fish will only seem to bite in the morning. Then somedays are the total opposite. I honestly don't know and that's the fun. Gambling for steelies in the morning has always been my most successful time.

[jerole1978]

Just got back and the good news is there are fish out there, a salmon swam past me at one point, and at another I'm fairly sure I had a steelhead tailing my fly just couldn't get him to bite.