Catch More Steelhead will start you out with all the fundamentals you need to get good at steelheading so that you can go out and practice the right way on the water from the beginning. JD shares all the stuff you need from gear selection to reading water and understanding where steelhead live under specific conditions—and a ton more.
Let’s face it…learning how to catch steelhead on a consistent basis is a daunting task when you are just starting out. There’s just so much info you have to know. The old school way of learn-ing takes a lot of trial and error (and time on the water) and the new way of watch-ing videos on YouTube can be confusing because of the lack of organization of all the content.
Wouldn’t it be cool if everything you needed to know was all in one place, with clear and easy steps to follow to get you on the right path to being one of those ten percent of the people catching 90 percent of the steelhead? Man, that would be one heck of a time saver!
Well, it just so happens that there is such an animal! I recently came across a brilliant online course called Catch More Steelhead and was excited to see it was produced by none other than STS’s longtime contributor, JD Richey. JD’s been a full-time fishing guide all over the place from Alaska to California since 1998 and really knows his stuff.
He says in the class that his goal to start you out with all the fundamentals you need to get good at steelheading so that you can go out and practice the right way on the water from the beginning. JD shares all the stuff you need from gear selection to reading water and understanding where steelhead live under specific conditions—and a ton more. The idea, he says, is to save you all that time—years… decades even—that it takes to get all this stuff down on your own.
But of course, there’s no substitution to spending time on the water and JD says that that’s truly to the way to get good. But with all the info in his course, you’ll be getting a huge jump on the process.
Who’s The Class For?
According to JD, he designed this whole thing for steelhead anglers who are beginners to “frustrated intermediates.” Sure, there’s some stuff in there that even veteran steelheaders would find helpful, but the class is really aimed at folks who are just getting into the game… or have been for a while but aren’t having the success they’d like to see.
Class Topics
In this course, you’ll find over 6 hours of on-the-river video instruction with JD standing in the water like you’re there with him, plus a ton of video lectures, diagrams, photos and more. Because it’s an eCourse, you can watch everything at your leisure and you’ll forever have access to all the content.
Here’s what he covers:
The main concepts are Where to Go (learn to read the water); When to Go (understand where and when to fish based on conditions like river height, water clarity and temperature) and What to Take (all the essential gear, lures, baits, etc.).
The 15 course modules are: Where to Find Steelhead, Drift Fishing, Float Fishing, Spoon Fishing, Plugs, Side Planers and Spinners, High Water Tactics, Low Water Techniques, What Steelhead Eat, How to Cure Roe, How to make Yarnies, Land-ing, Keeping and Releasing Steelhead, Essential Tools, the all important River Etiquette, Safety on the Water and a host of Bonus Tips.
Peeling back the layers even further, each one of those modules have instructional videos, lectures and diagrams breaking down all the little details you need for each topic. There’s an absolute ton of helpful content in there and it’s all organized and broken down in an easy to understand and follow way.
JD’s class will save you tons of time trying to figure all this stuff out on your own and will get you well on the way to catching more fish. It’s one of those deals that, as he says, I wished I’d had access to when I was just getting started. These days, it seems like life gets so busy that we don’t have as much time anymore to fish so might as well be doing it right when we do!
For More Info
Catch More Steelhead is available at www. fishwithjdstore.com. You can go to either of those sites and see more of what’s inside—and watch some sample videos to get an idea of what the class looks like.
The cost is regularly $99 but STS readers get 15% off. Just use the code STSXMAS in all caps at checkout. Think of it this way: for less than half the price of a good steelhead rod, you’ll get a lifetime of steelie fishing knowledge! Sounds like a deal to me!
