Hello, my name is 'mike' and I too am a steelheading bad luck charm.
I've likely got as much time creekside, actually likely a lot more as I started into it while I was off work. Now for the sake of full disclosure this is my third year chasing these fish. I've had some success landing resident brown trout and catfish, had a couple(2) of steelhead on and lost them to newby mistakes and missed another bunch of hits. But to date I've yet to actually land one.
In fact I'm positive for me it's a matter of right spot wrong time. In all my time fishing I've likely only seen another dozen, maybe less fish landed. So I'm cheering you on, since I feel your pain. I'm definately going to be overjoyed when I land my first one, but I won't take a picture because in my mind that fish is going to grow and become even more epic over time. I'll likely then head home and open a bottle of scotch I've been saving for such a day.
Good luck (and I mean it).