Satsop Fishing and Rod Upgrades

[The Coles]

Well, I thought I would go ahead a jump in with a report (of sorts) and a couple of questions regarding some component upgrades that I am attempting on a couple of rods.   Fished the East Fork of the Satsop River this past Saturday.  River level was tolerable and the wading easy if your careful.  Started by just scouting the closed water upstream of the bridge at Schaffer State Park http://www.parks.wa.gov/parkpage.asp?selectedpark=Schafer&pageno=1 just to see if and what species were around.  Spotted a half-dozen cohos in pretty good shape about 200 yards upstream from the bridge.  Did not see any steelies upstream.  I fished downstream from the bridge at the first bend and through the confluence with the middle fork for steelhead but no takes.  Ran out of time so had to abandon the quest for the time being. There were other fishers around, mostly plunkers and other hardware guys but no fish coming to them either.  Talked with an older gent on my way out to my truck and he related that he had taken 2 cohos on Friday and had multiple hookups also.  Area seems to generally have a good number of fish and also is getting alot of pressure on the weekends but little on weekdays. Am going back this next week.   Now to the question, really 2 questions.  I recently obtained a couple of rods via the Ebay bazaar. One is a Sage GFL 789 RPB and the other is of unknown pedigree, grey with spiggot type ferrules.  I have tried to get more info regarding the specs on the Sage but can't find the info so if anyone has experience with the GFL 789 RPB blank, I'd appreciate some feedback. Secondly, both of the reel seats on these rods were downlocking and I am changing them out to uplocking models.  I was able to "boil" both reel seats off the rods with no problem but am now faced with replacment reel seat choices.  I would appreciate anyone's opinions as to a brand and model of reel seat to use... PacBay? Bellinger's?  REC?  Other? Thanks all