Hey Ho. Don't think you'll ever find the all inclusive answer. Kind of like being a duck hunter.

The guys that stick with steelheading (10 years or more) are generally hooked for life. No pun intended. Most of the others quit. I remember the first year I started in 1977, and was fishing on the North Shore of Lake Superior. I hooked a fish on my second outing, and promptly lost it. My knees shook, and I trembled for a few minutes. I spent the next three months fishing every morning at 4:00 a.m. before school trying to catch another one, but it didn't happen. Most mornings, the weather was in the 20's, spitting snow and sleet. Would start a fire in the woods to warm up my hands, so I could keep fishing. At 7:15 a.m., my Mom would pull up in the car, and I would go home and go to school. Right after school, I would be right back at it again.

The neat thing is, that 24 years later, my knees still get wobbly when I hook a fish, and I can't wait to get on the river. I still feel like a little kid, when I hook a steelie. I still love learning new tricks and tactics to increase my arsenal of fish catching toys. I enjoy all kinds of other fishing, but none of them do it for me like a steelhead. Maybe it all goes back to that first year of working my a** off to catch a single fish. I have been appreciating each and every one of them since then. It's a illness, and I hope all of my kids (3 girls and 1 boy) become infected with it.