If you are primarily going to let inexperienced fishers use a baitcasting reel, you will be cleaning up birds nests all day long. Not a very productive day out fishing.

 

This ^^^
I guarantee that a baitcaster setup for beginner level guests will be a failed experiment.
Get a spinning setup for this purpose.

 

Makes sense, any recommendations on the spin setup?

 

What's your budget? A 9'6 8-17 sst with a 3000 daiwa bg would be my personal pick.

If other people are using it I'm not spending a ton of money on the setup, but want it to be something I'd enjoy fishing too.

30lb braid with a 6-10' top shot of mono. Works for hardware or float fishing.

 

There is no budget limit. I don't need the best of the best, but buying once and crying once are usually my routes. I already share expensive fly rods with buddies, so I'm okay with something higher-end; I will find ways to use it myself at some point.

I'm pretty sure one of my buddies who does fish has an Okuma, so I take a look at those.

 

Jester…. A guy can learn. We all did.

 

I totally agree. I taught my wife to cast a level wind in 5 minutes on the Trask one morning many, many years ago. She limited that morning with a Chinook and a Coho drifting corkies and sand shrimp in the hatchery hole. It easily can be done AND I immediately knew she was a keeper 😀. jc Tuna Maru

 

.

 

Any Shimano Baitcast w/DC.
Newbie friendly!

This is not a horrible statement. I’m no pro with a bait caster, but can sling my Curado DC without even trying. Dial the cast control all the way up to start, and even a drunk Chad D can cast reliably.

Much easier than my older Curado 300E, which is still an excellent caster.

If the OP is looking for a nice bait caster that is very forgiving, a Curado DC or SLX DC would be great options. Once the newbies start to get comfortable, dial the brakes down a touch.

 

OP, since budget isn't a problem I'd highly recommend two rods, one for steelhead and one for chinook. Make the steelhead setup 9'6" and rated for 6-12 or 8-12 (or even 6-10) on line. For chinook same length but rated up to 17, 20 or 25 lbs.

I'm a fan of 9'6" rods for their versatility.

Edit to add that I'd put a 2500 spinning reel on the steelhead rod and a 3000 on the chinook rod.

 

I hate spinning rods for salmon and steelhead fishing. However for inexperienced people they are a better option than a casting set up.. The learning curve for that curado about the same as a spey setup.

 

Remember when I was making the switch from spinning to casting. The 5001C was new on the market and like every other Steelhead fisherman, had to have one. Fishing bigger streams like Trask and Wilson it sort of worked okay. Small streams incorporation short(er) casts and light lead the reel sucked. One day on the Necannicum I was so fed up I was ready to retire the new reel. A fellow suggested I disable the cast control system as it would solve the problem. I did and it did. We have thumbs, use ‘em.

 

Yeah, but there is a big difference between yesterday and today’s nicer casting reels. I hated trying to train my idiotic thumb.

Worth noting, super tiny light weight braid doesn’t cast as well as something a little heavier.

 

I save braid for my trolling and sturgeon reels.

Chad…. No doubt the newer reels are better than the 5001C, I’d like to do a test run with one but my old reels never quit working. I did upgrade to the Shimano 251SG.