Salmo g.,

Though I'm confident you didn't mean me when you said "experts"...I'll give it a shot anyway!

you wrote:

"It has long seemed to me that an undisturbed steelhead, under water conditions that are neither too high, too low, too warm, or too cold, will strike the first properly presented bait or lure it sees."

I think that the above quote nails it...but I'm going to pick it apart a bit, and see what happens.

"undisturbed steelhead"-we may or may not get to run across many of these over the course of a day...fishing right now out on the Hoh, for instance, the water is so low, and so clear, that unless you are fishing tidewater, you are fishing over fish that have negotiated the nets, and swam past fifty or so plunking rigs, and then withstood a virtual flotilla of driftboats every day for the past month.

An undisturbed fish (i.e., a "new" one) would be awfully aggressive to a wider range of lures, in a wider range of water conditions, than would fish that have gone through the low water fishing gauntlet.

"properly presented bait or lure"-again, agreed, but I'm going to stretch the definition a little, and say that "properly presented" includes "properly selected" lure, too...when the water is low and clear, casting a K-15, or a huge red/white DareDevil, isn't likely to result in much, no matter how well you cast or retrieve it...the fish will be running for the hills.

On the other end, when you are looking at 6" of visibility, with mud and twigs coming down the river, a small jig tied on a size 4 hook, tied in black, isn't likely to get a ton of hookups, either, no matter how well of a caster, floater, and jig manipulator that you are...they'll just never see it.

"neither too low, too high, too warm, or too cold"-this, of course, is the key...and unfortunately, exists a lot less than we'd all like to see. Current conditions are good for expository reasons...we have low, clear, and warm conditions, in the winter. That's screwed up!

I think that if it is mid-March, the water temperature is 44 degrees, and perfect steelhead green, with 18 to 24 inches of visibility, and on a slow, but steady drop, and a good push of fresh wild winter runs has come in the night before, and seen no lines yet...then you could probably do well on almost anything, so long as you do it correctly.

Since those perfect conditions happen about once or twice per year, then the conclusion that you could probably do well on almost anything, so long as you do it correctly, probably only applies a few times per year, too...probably more often than the perfect conditions occur, but not much more.

That's when the rest of this conversation comes in.

I also think that while your thoughts about a "red fly" have application during the "perfect, or nearly perfect" conditions...what about all the other times you're out?

You wouldn't skate a Bomber when there are three inches of visibility on a rising river, would you? Or swim a five inch articulated yellow and red whatchamacallit, tied on a 2/0 hook, through gin clear water? Or fish a floating line for winter runs over twelve feet of water, or a Type IV 300 gr. sinker in four feet of walking pace water?

I think that all of those differing conditions call for different baits, different lures, different line sizes, and different techniques of fishing all the above.

Of course, the thing that overlays this entire discussion is the ability to read the water...no matter how well you cast and tie flies, if you are continually casting them over empty water, you're going to have trouble catching fish...and that, of course, applies to everything.

So, back to the "jig vs. egg" for fish in the tailout example...I won't say that I agree or disagree with the idea that you can catch fish in the tailout with a jig that you would't have caught with eggs, but I will say that fish of differing "conditions", i.e., hunkering down, fresh, aggressive, passive, etc., will definitely tend to hold in different areas of a run, especially if the run is long and provides a lot of different types of structure (trees, rocks, depth, and current)...and fish in different "personal conditions", even though they are in the same "river conditions", may prefer to see different lures, baits, or presentation techniques.

So, there's a long rambling answer to your question, that may or may not have answered anything, but was fun to write anyway!

Fish on...

Todd