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A good friend and I were fortunate enough to fish for steelhead last week in Southwestern New York. We aren't really big steelhead fishermen, and usually we only make it out about once or twice a year to fish for them during their fall migration into the lake Erie tributaries. Being more exclusively trout fishermen, we really don't have any heavy weight rods. My fishing partner went equipt with a 6 weight Cabelas Three Forks rod and I went armed with my Redington Crosswater 6 wt. We both got in to a bunch of steelhead and had a blast catching them.
This was the first time we fished for wild steelhead, and it didn't take very long to realize that our 6 weight rods were seriously inadequate. We managed to land about 15 each over the course of about 7 hours of fishing. At several points, we each had our rods completely doubled over from the shear strength of the fish, and the fast water we were fishing. The river was big at about 50 - 100 feet across in some areas and moving at a good clip. The USGS gauge read 350 cfs, which for a 50 - 100 foot wide river, is a pretty good flow.
We're now looking into bigger rods that would work for both steelhead and Chinook salmon in the fall here in the East. The one point I want to make here is that we each landed several large steelhead in the 10 - 15 lb range on our $100 Cabelas and Redington rods respectively. The rods were definitely put to the test with these fish, and I have to say that they both held up well. My partner even landed a 33 inch 16lb steelhead on his $100 Cabelas rod after about a 10 minute battle. No equipment failures, and I have complete confidence in my Redington after this trip.
You don't have to spend a lot to get a good rod that will hold up to the tough job of landing big fish. Over the last few months, I've put my Crosswater rod through all sorts of fishing hell and not one problem with it. Sure, you can spend $750 on a rod for steelhead, but I have a hard time justifying it. If money is no issue, then by all means, buy the best there is. We hope to review some more expensive rods soon. In the meantime, we're content hauling in big fish on cheap gear.
