Hello Fellow Anglers; Recently joined forum & am seeking advice /input as to matching a rod to a Penn International 1.5 Reel. I live in Northern California & enjoy fishing the Eel & Smith rivers for Salmon & Steelhead. I'm not on a budget...but don't want to take out a loan either...like to hear what "you" would match up with the "Golden Reel"......Thanks, Mark

Don't know anything about those reels Mark, but welcome to the forum, I am sure someone on here will help you.
Alan

Penn had kind of a funky number convention for their fly reels as I recall. What line weights is this one rated for?

It's a good reel--a lot of the harder core salmon guys would even say a great reel because they had Penn's legendary ability to survive salt and brackish water. Although the gold version was never really my kind of thing, there was black/gray version that I thought looked very nice.

As far as matching the reel to a rod, this is always a mistake. Rods are matched to fishing situations and conditions, not to reels. The reel is just along for the ride.

So you mentioned the rivers you fish. How and when do you fish them? Swinging salmon flies? Nymphing? Chuck and duck style with slinkies?

With salmon being the target, I'm going to say outside of very specialized techniques, on a single hand rod you're going to want to usually be 8 weight and up. It's difficult to envision anything shorter than 9 feet being desirable.

Grouse

Hi Mark,

You might be a little light on responses here because (1) Penn reels aren't really used over this side of the pond, and (2) you're asking about California where most of the people here haven't fished. That said, there are a few of us 'Merkins on the board.

The Penn 1.5 is a small-ish reel for salmon and steelhead. It is rated for 6-7-8 wt lines but is an overall 'odd' spec for thata size range. It is a little heavy so feels good on the bigger rods, but it doesn't have quite enough line capacity to fish as a big fish 8 wt reel. It will do an 8 wt line plus a bit over 100 yards of backing. It would be a good reel for longer rods (10') in the 7 wt range fishing pinks, kelts, summer run steelhead, and maybe coho (depending on the size of the runs and the rivers you're fishing). If that's what you're targeting, then a 9'6" - 10' 7 wt would be about the range to start looking in. Alternatively, if you want to use Micron backing (gel spun) you can get a bit more on the reel and fish it as an 8 wt (not a bad idea actually).

For specific rods, find a local fly shop and go cast some. There are supposedly quite a few good shops in that area, so go try and see what you like and what feels good. Personally I'd start casting a St Croix Legend Ultra, a Sage XP (or whatever the new ones are, XPS maybe?), and a Temple Fork TiCr. They are three different price ranges (medium, high, low respectively) and three different 'feels' of rod. They should all have a 9'6" 7 wt for a fair comparison.

Thanks
Rick