For what you described , you should ask Mike to make you a conventional on the 1208 blank. Unless you are somewhat expert , the 1209 is an awful lot of rod. The 1208 will throw to 5 and you'll only pay a little more for custom and you'll get the butt length and guide palcement optimized for the reel you buy. As far as the reel goes , if you don't know my answere , you haven't been paying attention.
The best reel to get would be a BG 7000CL. For the heavy applications you mentioned , 50 LB Cortland Spectron is the line I would use. I've tried whiplash. Its nice cause you can get a lot on a reel but for heavy stuff , the whiplash gets damaged too much in a backlash for my liking. After a backlash witha big jig and whiplash , you'll end up with weak spots where the thraeds crossed. Now I only tried the 50 LB whiplash but overall , the spectron is better. With Spectron , which is truely braided , not just spun spectra , if it doesn't actually break from the backlash , its fine. It pretty rough so you'll need the levelwind reel to use it. The BG7000CL will hold about 275 to 290 yards of the 50 LB Spectron.
Threaded Mode