Salmon, trout and steelhead are our passion! Informative and interesting articles by professional writers fill our pages each and every issue. Our Departments section writers will keep you well informed on new and upcoming happenings in the fishing world. Enjoy The Hog Pen where you can see the happy faces of anglers just like you! The New Products section is always a popular place to check out to
see what will make your fishing better. Read the magazine that the Pros read and become more involved in the fishing industry... We promise that in each fresh, exciting issue you will develop your knowledge to become a successful fisherman!
Salmon Trout Steelheader magazine features how-to and where-to articles for anglers who like to fish for salmon, trout, steelhead and many other species. Topic includes: conservation, fly fishing, gear fishing and humor. STS will help you catch more fish.
Ninety-five percent of Americans over 25 years of age have email but many of them don’t check their email daily—and no wonder. Americans receive an average of 80 emails each day and if your inbox is like mine, roughly half of them are junk that wasn’t automatically kicked out by the spam detec...
For how many years or thousands of years have humans fished with live or dead bait? There is probably no definitive answer to that question. But in recent years people seem to be leaving herring and anchovies in the freezer. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use bait. Let’s take a look at ...
22/08/2025
Eric and Uncle Jeff (left) with a chrome bright Columbia River chinook salmon. Good times!
21/08/2025
Buzz Ramsey with two chrome bright coho salmon from just minutes ago!
16/08/2025
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The clear advantage of the 360 flasher is that it has a very large attraction radius—it can draw fish from a long ways away—and it also provides very enticing movement to bait or lures, especially small, light baits or lures. This movement imparted to the bait or lure will often close the deal w...
Bill Monroe Jr. nets a salmon for Jake Gregg. Most fishing guides would agree that the best time to have your line in the water, especially in the Astoria-Megler Bridge area, is during high slack and on the first half of the outgoing tide. If high slack just happens to coincide with the crack of daw...
Washington River Maps & Fishing Guide features detailed maps—and that’s only the beginning. Detailed Fishing Maps, Including : River Access Boat Launches Salmon and Steelhead Run Times Insect hatches Fishing Techniques Knots & Tackle Guide Services & Accommodations for Anglers and mu...
Detailed Fishing Maps, Including: River Access Boat Launches Salmon and Steehead Run Times Insect hatches Fishing Techniques Knots & Tackle Guide Updated Services & Accommodations for Anglers and much more... The ultimate book for Northern California anglers! Northern California River Maps &...
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The Story of Frank Amato Publications
Frank Amato Publications, Inc. is the publisher of three major magazines: Salmon Trout Steeheader, Great Lakes Angler and Flyfishing & Tying Journal, with over 500 fishing and outdoor related book titles, plus several videos. Located in Portland, Oregon, Frank Amato has been accommodating outdoor readers for over 50 years. Frank Amato began with Salmon Trout Steelheader (STS) magazine in the 1960's.
The First STS
Salmon Trout Steelheader started life with the finest West Coast fishing writers. The leadoff article "Will Chinook Take a Fly?" was written by world-famous British Columbia writer and angler, Roderick Haig-Brown. In 1967 he was in his fifties and had authored about 10 outstanding books dealing with salmon, trout, and steelhead angling and fisheries conservation. I had read them all and he was my guiding light. I sent him a simple letter, explained my idea for STS and he graciously agreed to write an article.
Haig-Brown became the inspirational fisheries conservationist for thousands of angler opinion makers, especially from 1950 until he died in 1977. In my estimation he is the patron saint of North American trout and steelhead fishing and conservation, standing far above his contemporaries. His books are as valid today as when they were first published.
Enos Brander, of Seattle, wrote an article about steelhead fly fishing the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River. As the long time editor of the Seattle Times he was widely known for his strong feelings on conservation and very savvy fish knowledge.
Tom McAllister, of Portland, was an outdoor editor of the daily Oregon Journal (a very large daily in Portland, OR) and he wrote an article about salmon fishing in Tillamook Bay which 40 years later is still very relevant. Tony McAllister is still very active lecturing and helping conservation causes and is the unofficial outdoor-writer emeritus of the Oregon Country.
Fred Goetz, also of Portland, was the widest-read fishing columnist in the world in the 1960s. Millions of union members read his pieces that were published weekly or monthly in scores of union papers across the nation. I knew him personally because he shopped in the Kienows grocery store where I worked while attending high school and college. I asked Fred to do a column on fishing for white sturgeon in the Columbia and Willamette rivers. I would see him years later as his daughter Susan married my second cousin Tim Hoey, whose sister Barbara was my first employee. Now retired, Tim gives us a hand when we need him.
Larry Green, well-known writer from California, also contributed to the first issue, as well as several other issues. His Expertise ranged from California steelhead and trout waters to equipment.
Frank Tabor was our excellent cartoonist who lived in Ridgefield and captured both fishing humor and editorial nuances concerning the commercial gill-netting of steelhead which was still legal in the Columbia until about 1973.
I wrote an article about the Dry Creek area on the Deschutes River on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. At the time the trout limit was 10 fish and STS immediately began to push for a two-trout limit. Today the trout fishing is much better in the Deschutes than in 1967, as it is in many other places as well.
Why did I start Salmon Trout Steelheader? (The original name was Northwest Salmon Trout Steelheader.) In 1967 there was no regional fishing magazine in the entire United States. There was only the Big Three:Field & Stream, Sports Afield, and Outdoor Life. A few other fishing magazines existed, but none specializing in salmonids. STS was probably the first of the "specialty fishing magazines". Today there are two score more. Fly Fisherman started two years after STS and then the flood gates opened.
I liked to read about Northwest fishing, but the few articles published each year in the "big three" left me wanting more. So my wife Gayle and I, and my original partner Joe Torres, scraped a few thousand dollars together and published the first issue of STS in August of 1967. I had asked advice from Portlander Pete Hidy (fly-fishing book author) as to whether I should start such a magazine and he casually dismissed the idea as a kid's dream and said at the least I would need $50,000! Wow! I decided to go ahead anyway.
For a long period of time it was a financial struggle to make STS work and my non-fishing partner who was more interested in the business end dropped out. In the ensuing 45 years Salmon Trout Steelheader has grown steadily and especially so in the past several years with my son Nick at the helm whose idea it was to take STS from six to ten issues per year.
Probably had there been no Roderick Haig-Brown there would be no Salmon Trout Steelheader, noFlyfishing & Tying Journal and none of the 500-plus fishing books we have published. His ideas in his many books inspired my fishing, my imagination and my desire to change fishing regulations and other management tools to protect the fish firstly and satisfy anglers secondly; for without the beautiful fish we are nothing.
