“Any harder, ‘cardboard box’ color, they can’t see your offering.” With a laugh Carter defines steelheading, “There’s trout fishing, steelheading and then, Idaho steelheading.” Why the passionate difference? The object of Carter’s passion is not just the fish. Any clearer, the fish scatter at your approach.” Carter continues the laundry list. Two or three feet of visibility seems to help the bite. Just warm enough so that the ice doesn’t freeze in your guides and a little bit of run-off so that the water is a milky green. Getting these fish to hit seems half legend-half mysticism but Jon says the weather and water seem to be the controlling factors. “They just seem to bite better when it is snowin’ or rainin’.” A professed steelhead addict, he makes several trips each spring and fall to match wits with these sea-going trout. “It’s gotta be cold, real cold,” proclaims Carter. When I asked my dad about it, he said, “All I know is that it’s cold, real cold.” I’d heard about steelhead fishing all my life but had never been exposed to it here in Utah. Having heard a rumor about Carter’s fishing passion, when I saw a picture of him holding a steelhead in a regional magazine I thought it was time for a phone call. It was there over his nine-year tenure that he developed the many characters and radio hi jinx that made him a fixture in Utah’s radio landscape. Mister Twister, better known as radio personality Jon Carter, came from Idaho in the late 70’s to KLO. Who would’ve thought a fish would introduce me to “Mister Twister” himself more than 15 years later.

For some reason, I have a distinct memory of driving up North Temple on my way to class, listening to a KRSP disc-jockey as he did a Doug Miller outdoor show parody.

The commute to the University of Utah was a regular fixture of my life for several years as I stumbled through the hallowed halls of higher education. (Published March, 2000, Utah Outdoors magazine)

Idaho fish and game stocking report