First steelhead on a fly earns 13-year-old Fish of the Week honors

Christian Orlando made his first steelhead one to remember.

The 13-year-old from Western Springs caught the 12-pound steelie from Michigan’s Muskegon River Saturday on a salmon fry fly with an 8-weight fly rod, his Dad Joe Orlando emailed.

Two things really strike me: First that a 13-year-old caught a serious fish like that is cool, but even cooler is that it came on a fly rod and a fly from a nearby river.

I like to celebrate both the challenge and succeeding at it.

FOTW, the celebration of big fish and their stories (the stories matter, as this one shows) around Chicago fishing, runs Wednesdays in the paper Sun-Times. The online posting here at chicago.suntimes.com/outdoorsgoes up at varied days of the week, depending on what is going on the wide world of the outdoors.

To make submissions, email (BowmanOutside@gmail.com) or contact me on Facebook (Dale Bowman), Twitter (@BowmanOutside) or Instagram (@BowmanOutside).