Contrary to what was the conventional wisdom 50 years ago, steelhead do hit flies. I switched from bait fishing to fly fishing for steelhead around 1972. I got off to a rather slow start because, unlike today, there was no internet full of useful "how to" information. But I figured it out and began catching steelhead. Mainly because there were always steelhead around, unlike when I go fishing now. I'll say that it's much easier to learn to catch fish on flies when there are a lot of fish around to give you feedback by taking your fly when you're doing it right, and ignoring your presentation when you're doing it wrong. In recent years it's easy to do everything right and still not catch fish, mainly because we're fishing water that isn't holding any steelhead.

Because so many people were posting on internet forums asking about fly fishing for steelhead, I began writing an essay on it about 10 or 12 years ago with a working title of "How to fish good for steelhead." Then the bottom fell out of steelhead returns, and I thought who in their right mind would want to learn to fish for steelhead these days? So the essay lingers somewhere on my hard drive in a WORD document. I could email it to you if you like. It covers most of the basics, but it can't make steelhead be in the places they normally used to be.

Oh, I still fish. Wed. - Fri. on the OP. 1 steelhead, 1 bull trout for 3 days. I've done better; I've done worse. But I'll probably just keep fishing anyway until I no longer can.