I love the first steelhead stories! I remember fishing around Jims Rock on the Sky when I was early/ mid teens, dad would drive me to river and fish with me, as I wasn't old enough to drive. We put alot of time in around Cracker Bar because that is where we were told that was a good spot, well, we had seen alot of fisherman come and go from the gravel bars and nobody ever carrying anything out. We went out around Xmas break when I didn't have school and fished several days, water was low, clear, and cold. I decided to go away from our clown spin n glo and yarn and run straight store bought borax eggs on a #4 hook. We went to the same drift that never panned out, and after a couple hours of cast, step, cast, step, my drift rig tapped differently and I set the hook as a 7-9lb chromer shoots out of the water and spits the hook.... I was devastated, and for the next several months that fish haunted me, now 25 years later and hundreds of steelhead under my belt, I wish I could go back in time and land that fish...lol It wasn't my first fish, but for some stupid reason it left an impression on me. Possibly because I had never caught and took home a hatchery fish