or... the Fin nor Troppo 8 ft 2pc rod. Certainly cheap enough.

I'm by no means an expert but I'm using an 8' Okuma Andros stickbait rod which goes well. Cost about $300.

I would like to see the beast who can run 30kg of drag with thumb pressure comfortably while the fish goes at 40k which further increases drag pressure due to friction heat, etc.

Smart marine were the agents, but dont know if they still do. Ring them

PS i will call Hennie and find out if you are serious on one

Shimano terez do a popper/stickbait rod in their range.  Spied one yesterday at Fishcity.  Nice looking rod and reasonable money.  I fish with an Okuma Andros -3 piece 7 foot 3 inch and I also have Diawa Monster Mesh the older grey model about 7 foot 9 inch. Both are nice rods -the diawa casts popper and stickbaits a good distance and works a stickbait better.  But I use the Andros more because of it's slightly shorter length.  Reason the Terez attracted my attention was it looked even shorter - maybe only 7 foot and slightly ligher weihgt -suited to PE 4-5.  Alot of my fishing in gulf is softbaiting with a stickbait rod handy for when kings show -a shorter rod is often easier to quickly fire out.  And a lot of the time PE4-5 is going to be ample for the fish we are catching and nicer to fish with -allows use of smaller baits.

http://www.thompsonwalker.co.nz/brand/19

Pete and Kaveman, Smart no longer bring these rods into NZ, there is a guy James (Kiwi Fishing) who also does the Canyon Reels and the Blue Heaven Reels - who is on this forum - who does OTI rods....not sure of his call sign on here...

Jesus! Conan with a 'fro! Is that you? Nice fish btw!

I have one of the heavy 80 lb tuna snipers that is not getting used I could be persuaded to part with 

Hi
I have two Shimano Raiders 7 foot that I got from hunting and fishing botany a bit back for 99 $ each,,They are all I use and rated at 10 -15kg of memory..one stopped a sting ray at 1.5 m using an old pen jug master with steel spool..Its over 35 years old and was used at mouth of manukau into the main channel for most of the time now just on my 16 foot boat..

I have an optus rig but not had a work out yet but seams ok...I don't buy expensive as have to many old rigs and they just keep on going...Cheers Phill