This is a hot topic.

I get lots of my info from constantly asking the same question to many anglers.

I ask the better anglers and top guides lots of questions too.

My friend Al Perryman, who is one of the top fly fishers I know, believes that you can't catch real hot wild screaming Steelhead on anything less than 2x tippet. He really did not say that exactly. He was telling me that he believes that we should be using at least 2x tippet for Steelhead because while fishing on the Rogue River with a 6 weight rod and 3x tippet in the early Fall he was not able to consistently land the larger hot summer run Steelhead. He said they just got out a lot of line and while jumping, they just popped off the 3x tippet.

Mike Mercer, who is a top fly fisher, told me once that the difference between 2x and 3x was really dramatic while we were fishing Steelhead on the Lower Feather River maybe 20 years ago.

If you are indicator nymphing with lighter, softer rods, I know they use 3x and even 4x at times.

For swinging flies in the Fall you need some tippet strength to keep from having hot fish pop your fly off on the strike.

Joe Shirshac, Frank Pullen, Mel Jeffs and I were on the Klamath River in October in the 1970s and we found a really fresh run of Steelhead above the Green Riffle that were running 4 to 8 pounds. In those days we used Maxima Chameleon tippet material. We were all using 6# test but we all soon went to 8# because those fish were popping us off. I think that 8 pound Maxima test out at about 12# on our line testing machine.

Joe Shirshac and I hit a big run of fresh wild Steelhead on the Trinity River in early November of 1981. They were running 6 to 12 pounds. We were using 6# Maxima on them but soon switched to 8# because we could not land them with 6.

Some of my guide friends on the Klamath use to use 2x but now they use 1x with the bigger fish.

In British Columbia they use 12 and 15# Maxima Chameleon for Steelhead.

On the Dean River in British Columbia we used 10# test Maxima which seemed to hold most of those fish.

After about 20 years of fishing the fresh run Sockeye Salmon at the Brooks River in Alaska, Joe Shirshac said that 8# Maxima was the perfect size. He said anything heavier was impossible to break off when a big Brown Bear was after your fish.

Over in the tide water on the north coast in the 1970s they used Maxima Ultragreen in 6, 8 and 10# test depending on the water clarity.

If the water is off color or it is dark in the morning/evening or it is really overcast I would use Ox tippet on Steelhead because you can.

If the water is clear and it is sunny I would use 2x fluorocarbon (GrandMax). On a really light rod I might go to 3x 'GrandMax' or Rio 'Fluoroflex Plus' if it made a difference in hooking fish with small flies.

Back in the 1970s I was lucky to fish the Gualala River when it still had a good run of Steelhead. I fished there with some really good anglers who at times used really light tippet when the river was running very clear. I think some like Hal Janssen went to 3x and 4x with size 10 and 12 flies. It was like lake fishing.

There is a relationship or balance between rod/line size, tippet size and fly size that needs to be considered too.

In January/February on the lower American River you can probably land those old tired and cold hatchery fish with 3x or even 4x if you have a light rod.

I believe in using the heaviest tippet the fish will bite consistantly. Why not?