It has been awesome to see such a marked interest in plugging for ulua over the past year alone! So many fishermen seem to have caught "the Bug" lately that there are some good questions out there regarding gear. Since the vast majority of us fish exclusively from shore, we tend to need a long "surf style' rod to achieve the best possible casting distance. Most often these are in the 9'-11' range. I thought that this post might serve as a general guide to choosing the right surf plugging rod for those interested.

One of the topics that seems to come up often; is how to choose a surf rod that will apply to ulua plugging, based on the manufacturers' ratings. 

For most lighter plug fishing (up to 3oz) many of the surf rods out there on the market will do a perfectly fine job of effectively working the lures in that range. Pretty much all the major manufacturers build their surf rods catering to mainland market, the majority of that being driven by East Coast surf fishermen. The majority of the lures that are used over there fall within the 1oz-4oz range, so the majority of rods are produced to accommodate that size of lure. And most of the surf rods built to handle heavy weights (6-10oz) are usually intended to be casting lead and bait, not lures. 

Stepping it up into the range of mid-heavy ulua plugging (3oz-10oz) really changes the way that we need to choose a surf rod for our purpose here in Hawaii. Unfortunately for us, many of the surf rods out there fall short of our needs for throwing these bigger GT style lures. It's not because the surf rods cant cast the weight of a big plug, it's that they cant always efficiently work a GT lure to its full potential.
This problem comes from the fact that GT lures, and more specifically GT poppers, need to displace a ton of water to be worked properly. Most of the surf rods out there have been designed to use lures that have a much much smaller body and cup profile, and displace a lesser amount of water than a standard GT lure. This makes perfect sense because we are the only state that has GT fishing, and there is not really much of a need for large rod companies to produce equipment for our tiny little niche market here... yet!

The enormous amount of water displacement from big plugs creates a ton of drag on the lure, and can really bog down a surf rod while trying to work the lure to its potential. For a surf rod to really shine at GT plug fishing, it needs to have the proper tip action to work the lures you want to throw. 
For example: a surf rod is labelled for 2-8oz may cast a 6oz lure perfectly, but it may not have enough tip strength to POP even a 5oz popper to its potential. This is because most of the surf rods out there are built with a softer tip section designed for high casting distance, and also to work typical mainland style lures effectively. Anyone who has ever thrown a 3.5oz New England Style pencil popper knows that the softer the rod, the better!
It's just not so, however, for our needs in GT fishing. 

*A photo example of a mainland striped bass style popper and a GT style popper. You can see that the GT popper is going to push a tremendous amount of water compared to the striped bass style. Most major rod manufacturers have no surf rods available to work such a huge cup face, because the overall fishing communities they cater to, do not use such lures.


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From what i have found, a decent general guide to choosing surf popping rod for ulua; is to choose a rod that has a maximum lure rating of Double what your largest intended lure weight is. Then, slightly increase this ratio as your maximum intended lure size goes up. 
For Example:
If the biggest lure you plan to throw is 2oz, then look for something rated 1oz-4oz
If the biggest popper you plan on using is 3.5oz, then look for a rod rated 2oz-8oz
If the biggest GT popper you ever think you'll throw is 5oz, then look for a surf rod rated maybe 3oz-11oz lure.
If you plan on using giant 6oz-8oz premium GT style poppers, then look for something rated up to 16oz *(and plan on blowing a whole paycheck, which you should expect to always be doing because at this point, you're an addict, and you've got problems)* 

This may not be exact every time because different manufacturers will rate their rods differently, as each will also have very different actions. Also, each lure has its own personality and feel in the water. But as a starting point, this rod rating guide should help narrow down your choices when your in the store.

I hope that little bit of info can help out as a good jumping point for those out there just getting into it. Again, it's just a bit of generalized information based on my own experiences. Good luck with finding the perfect rod, and good fishing!