Hi everyone,

Apologies for yet another post about set ups but I've had a good trawl of the forum before writing this.

I'm travelling over to NZ this Christmas, and I'm looking to get a set up to target some kingies off the rocks whilst on my travels. I have two rods in mind and wondered if anyone had any experience with them. The two options I'm looking at are either -

Shimano back bone elite topwater 8'3" 50-80lb

Or

Okuma metaloid topwater 7'9" 50-100lb

They both seem to come out around a similar price, the difference being I can get the okuma over here and bring it with me,whereas the shimano I would have to wait until I got over there to get it, and time wasted shopping is fishing time wasted haha. The okuma is rated as being able to cast 90-150g, does anyone know if it will cast much lower effectively? Also are both of these rods suitable for working floating or slow sinking stickbaits as this is what I will mostly be using?

I plan on teaming up one of these with a 10k gosa, do you guys in the know think this will be a suitable/viable set up for me have a good go at?

Cheers everyone,
Lew

The okuma metaloid is a far superior rod, they are the same blanks as cheaper jigging masters! The rod you have specified will be too heavy to work lighter stickbaits effectively that said have a try swimming them then why not! My advice is to stick with one set and keep casting you will get what you want just be in the right place at the time with the right gear

Thanks for the replies guys,

They do a metaloid in a lighter 30-160g version which could be suited better to chucking the stickbaits? It's slightly shorter at 7'6" would this still be ok? Also it is rated to 65lb, if I used 65lb braid as opposed to the intended 85lb would this still be strong enough?

Cheers,
Lew