Well back from Tonga, and can now give you report on the Okuma 3 piece Andros PE2-5 Popper/Stickbait rod.
What I liked about rod:
1) Fits in a rod tube - thats fits diagonally into a large suitcase
2) Casts a range of weights really well from 65 gram metal jigs and still capble of lobbing out 200 gram river 2 -sea and williamson poopers, also tried stick bait with it around 90 grams -and also fished that reasonably well.
3) Pretty solid rod -loads up fast on fish. Would stick to line rating suggested -we used PE 5 and PE 2 -both worked rod well. Probably more suited to PE 4 to 5 -but was still handy for lighter work in the lagoons.
Dislikes:
1) Not a major but aluminium alps style reel seat -needs to be thoroughly tightened and kept an eye on during casting session -as reel seat can work loose.
Thats it really, will put some photos from trip up once wife downloads from camera and mate with me sends some through some from his -we have some spectacular photos of some of ledges fished and what large waves do when smashing into them.
Did hook one large GT on seaward side of Vava'u with rod - unfortuntely a rather shortlived battle and it broke me off in short order. I had been using PE 2 to get a bit of distance with a light crome jig -suggested by "Tehau" - our guide. Crome jig he suggested (halco wobbler) certainly worked but my choice of line weight left me undergunned.
Anyway will know next time to respect the fish (not use silly string). Also saw a couple of decent GTs and bluefins swimming round wharf at Mystic sands -but these were specially trained fish that would only appear when you didn't have rod handy.
Some interesting light top water stuff available in Vavau harbour lagoons -small baracuda and longtom and trevally present. Again small crome jigs seemed to be go there.
Anyway currently working on post on the outstanding gamefishing we had...