Maybe its just me but I have some strange love for steelhead. Steelheading is about so much more than catching a stupid fish.
I dont think steelhead are hard to catch because of pressure.....there are far less anglers out there in the colder months as oppose to fishing for salmon when the weather is nice and every living loogan is out.
don't want to get into psychology of it, but:
-steelheading is new for you
-you have only a hand full of steelhead under your belt,
-knowing how crappy your neck of the woods was, i can only assume from hearing stories and have high expectation of catching steelhead has made you desire steelhead even more.
-you associate salmon with loogans and weirdos and snaggers, hence you automatically look down on the fish as being trash.
-there might be less crazy people in shorts running after steelhead. but steelhead sit in holes and takes few anglers to be enough to leave no room for you to fish comfortably.
-there is thousands of salmon all over the place. main issue is the area you can fish for them after end of September, that makes it a zoo when you go to popular areas.