Till my last trip, I have been using the combo of a Carpenter WildViolence 80XH alongside a Stella 18k spooled up with PE12 Avani GT. This set up has kept those old bones on my back in place.
From the next trip onwards, I will be changing to the Kaiser EL Toro 150 GT rod coupled with the Stella 18k, will be spooling the reel still with either a PE10 or 12 lines Although the rod is rated as PE8-10, I still feel there is no room for PE8 lines with regards to GT popping. There is simply too little room for errors with thin lines.