>>485951Well how much fishing experience do you have? Are you talking about on a great lake for them or on a river/stream? Ever fly fished ?
Are you sure the laws/regs are open for steelhead in April - Some places have them year round others like where I am don't open until the last Saturday in April so basically May.
I steelhead every year on the Maitland river here in Ontario that runs off of lake huron and I only fly fish for them now. You can target them in so many different ways. I use a 11 ft 7 weight spey rod which I wouldn't recommend for beginners but the best for conditions on big rivers.
Fly fishing is really great because it's easy to be able to fish the whole river and section it off. It allows you to place the fly or nymph where the fish would be feeding natural. You can fish with a dry fly off the top or swymph with an indicator. Lets the fly/nymph drift naturally in the stream.
If you've never fly fished or don't want to give it a go then a decent heavier spinning rod set up. Like 10 pound line at least. You can find lures that mimic any fly or egg pattern you might find. Talk to locals and see what they feed on where you are. Where I am they like anything from classic pheasant tails, hairs ears, lead-eyed buck tail streamers, simple black buggers, parachute adams have always done well in colder waters the list really goes on for ever.
You can also set up a regular rod with an indicator/drift setup you just can't do as much with it.
If you were talking about going out on the lake then you're going to want a real heavy action rod with a reel with a really large arbour with a linecounter setup with leadcore line preferable coloured to keep track of depth and use dipsy divers to get real deep.
>tldr: for the most simple set up get a heavy acton rod with a good reel some heavy line and find lures that mimic things in the water just like any other fishing. 
