i have a rainshadow 8wt wrapped to be a pin rod, done by the man himself! beautiful beautiful rod!

im going to tell you right now, spey blanks seem to make the best pin blanks... proper length, proper power for fish in this area, and 4 piece. sometimes i wonder if they cast better because the way a spey blank is designed to load up and shoot skagit or scandi line...???

keep in mind a 13' rod is more like 12' from the reel. i would go NO LESS then 11'6" unless you strictly fish from a boat. personally i like a longer blank because it seems to load up and toss further easier. and if you are standing in water the longer rod helps extra much with your casting.

bank fisherman - 12' + imo
boat fisherman - 10'6" imo

reel - raven matrix special edition, BEST bang for the $$ casts medium to heavy weights just as well as some of the reels twice the cost. wont cast super light weights quite as well. but seeing as we are fishing winter steelhead here you shouldnt be "ultra light"
if not the matrix SE then get a reel with a bigger spool for line retrieve.

for a gear rod i use 8-15 or 10-17 ... i like stouter then some people because i rather not be severely under gunned if i hook a large fish. nor do i want to exhaust a big fish with a light rod and risk lactic acid build up in the fish.