Thanks for the input guys (except you Charlie, i'll deal with you next week in Waiokini and Kaalualu),
It's not so much that i want to buy a Fire Vortex, but one may be available locally at a good price, and i need a heavy duty stick for the rest of the summer. One of the biggest problems with getting gear in Hawaii, is that there are NO tackle shops that stock high end plugging equipment. We cannot go to the store and give all the different rods the shake down in person. This makes finding the right rod tough, because ordering blindly off the internet is a crap shoot, especially when your budget is really small. Also there is only a super tiny amount of fishermen here in hawaii that plug GT off boats, so it's even quite rare to see a good quality used rod pop up for sale.
Most of the time i build my own rods, but i cannot find any blanks suited for 150lb line.
Anybody willing to sell a used Ripple Fisher 78XH and ship to Kona, haha!
As Charlie pointed out, no fighting belts for me. I figure the nut-sac gimbal approach will lessen the chances of getting my girlfriend pregnant, which = more time for fishing and zero time changing diapers. Is that Math???
Thanks again guys!