Well a couple things people overlook when coming into steelhead fishing are thier vest, boots, wader, fly boxes and the car to drive. Starting with fly boxes here is my two cents, buy more than one, buy about 10 a first if you can afford it. For summer fishing I would buy two that had foam on one side and clips on the other (like the one above). Okuma makes durable boxes that are not to spendy. Make sure to buy enough boxes that you are not going to be swapping flies back and forth, foam does not last for too long if under constant change of patterns. This is where the clips are nice they allow change so pattern that are going to be used or changed allot can be placed on the clips instead of the foam. Another kind of box that is good for summer patterns when dries are going to be used are the windowed boxes ( pictured below), htey allow the hackle of the fly to be free and not smushed against foam, they also allow for fast drying of dry patterns because of the vent holes. These boxes can range from $25 dolloar to a couple hundred dollars.

Boots are deffiantly forgot about until a five hour outing, when your feet feel like they are going to fall off. I wore a $50 pair a Hodgemen for three years, they were great starting out boots but soon realized that if I wore them for more then two hours they become very unfortable (I wiegh 250lbs).