New to fly fishing for steel

As an addition to what others have said, both in agreement/extension, and as an alternative: 80-90% of my steelhead fly fishing is done with 0-2 feet of fly line on the surface of the water, and of that, 75% is 0 feet.  I use the butt and mid of a normal knotless tapered leader, with a perfection loop tied on both ends, and then 2-3 feet of tippet loop-to-looped on the end.
 
Terminal tackle varies by flow, depth, and clarity, but I only ever use any sort of indicator when I actually will use it.  That means when I can't see the fish/my fly/my leader & tippet below the surface.  Even in those conditions, I'll only add the indicator if I feel I'm not going to be able to notice anything but the most aggressive takes.  Again, for 80-90% of my fishing, it's no-indicator.  
 
These two things in mind, you can get the picture that the vast majority of my fishing is within 1-2 rod lengths of my position, and my presentation is usually between vertical and 45 degrees to the water surface.  This means that in most drifts, I can maintain constant near-contact with my terminal tackle (avoiding both slack and direct tension, which will kill any possibility of a good drift and put you mostly out of the game).  It allows me to quickly adjust my drift on the fly, feel ticks on the bottom, and let me know instantly if the line stops (whether in the mouth of a fish or, more likely, in a crevice in the shale).
 
Fishing this close in, there's no need for casting, and at the end of a drift, one can easily just flip the line back upstream for another go of it.  This is really the main reason I like the fly rod up there; just that little bit of line out past the tip of my rod (1-10 feet) is enough mass to turn over the rest, and that gives me the exact same distance of my "cast" every time, or allows me to make a fine adjustment (sometimes the difference between "not a glance" and "fish on" is a matter of an inch) to get my fly just on the edge of a seam, or even something more tricky, like having the current pull my fly under an overhang while leaving my lead bouncing out of sight over the top of the ledge.