Jed Davis wrote a great article on trolling for steelhead in the salt. Use a small #70 hotshot, black or green; let out 100-150' of line without any weight; troll dead slow. He says you don't get many steelhead, but it is effective. Fish the bays off the mouths of rivers. I've tried it several times, and haven't caught any steelhead, but my problem was I couldn't even let the line out without shaker coho hitting it. I caught over 40 shakers last time out.