Hi Tony,
Ulua fishing comes in many flavors.
To be called an Ulua, the fish must weigh 10 lbs. The biggest caught from shore were over 150 lbs. They do grow to 200 lbs.
You can follow the links on the following page to get an idea of the equipment used. Some is obsolete.
[
www.hawaiifishingnews.com]
So the question becomes, what type ulua fishing does your friend do?
Bait casting, slide bait? Light, medium or heavy equipment? Spinning or conventional ?
Main line goes from about 20# to 100#. So there is a great range in rods and reels. The most popular reels are Penn and Newell.
Jeff Andrews has not been on the scene for some time. He played a historic role by the development of 2 piece graphite Ulua blanks. The history was along the lines: Sabre, Lamiglas, Fenwick, Jeff Andrews, and IRW (AKA OutCast). Recently there has been a flourish of blanks entering the market with a lot of them from China and Korea. Nitro probably leads sales of low end rods, while IRW leads sales of the more mid range rods.
I'm sure that Joe Meehan is correct about the titanium guides. They should be quite durable. I have been using Alconite guides in the past for all my bait casting rods. I will say that I was very impressed by the performance of the Am Tackle ring lock guides as compared to Fuji Gold Cermet guides. In addition to the lighter weight of the Am Tackle guides, I had minimized the weight of the wraps.
The metal sleeve is usually made of polished stainless steel. They are 12" long and come in various diameters both mm and inches. E.G. 22, 24, 26, 28, 30 mm. 1", 1 1/8", 1 1/4", 1 3/8". Almost every tackle shop will have a supply on hand.
Hope to have answered most of your questions,
Don
Don Becker
