Thanks to all for your input. There's some good insight to be found throughout the thread. In the end, however, it looks like the answer to this question (like so many regarding fly fishing for steelhead) is less than conclusive.

It's always interesting (and sometimes frustrating, assuming you're trying to learn something the easy way) to see how much of everyone's fishing "knowledge" is based on personal experience and just how much that experience varies among anglers. I think this is a big part of what makes fishing so fun and so confounding all at the same time.