I've been slowly working my way to a bigger collection of stuff. That fish was caught on a Goofish Black PE3-6 rod with an Accurate BV-500N. 50 pound Daiwa j braid with an 80 lb floro leader and a Johnny jigs jig of some kind (not sure of the exact one, came in one of the jig variety packs they sell). I used a single heavy duty mustad assist hook on the top. There were a ton of small white fish around and it seemed to help with not hooking every single one. Could have resulted in a few missed hook ups later on in the trip but its very hard to tell fish size with the rod until they start trying to pull drag.
My only complaint with the setup so far is the 500N has an issue with changing the drag setting after a few drops. It was an ebay find so it may have been setting on a shelf for who knows how long and just needs serviced but it did make the fight more challenging than it needed to be as full drag felt around 10lbs max. Took a lot of thumb work to bring it in.
As far as the fight, I think it went pretty easy. Not sure on the time, maybe 5-10 mins, its hard to tell when you are pulling on a fish. Conditions were absolutely as perfect as they could get. It was early morning, no wind and very little current. We were on the tuna grounds so the bottom wasn't super sticky reef. Half the boat was still waking up and the other half that was fishing were all flylining so I had the bottom all to myself and nobody to get tangled up in.
The goofish rod isn't what I would classify as a true slow pitch rod, its got some backbone to pull against the fish with and worked great for keeping constant tension on the fish. That and being a "cheap" rod I used it with out fear to my pocketbook to put a lot of pressure on the fish. At some fish strength range you would have to switch over to using the reel as a wench and pulling it up every inch but this fight was still in the fun to fight range with that combo.
I wasn't able to connect with another sold fish on the trip with it again to compare, but I did like the light weight of the set up allowing me to jig as much as I wanted. There was one nice evening bite on slug yellowtail that only wanted dropper loop live bait so it was not a magic bullet by any means.
Negatives to be aware of, as far as I could tell:
1. Almost nobody will know what you are doing, this includes deckhands.
2. Going over someone with a fish would be a nightmare, and doing a tango with another live fish would be even worse.
3. If you get in a tangle with someone(s) keeping control of the fish and lifting up the mess enough for the deckhands to get you clear will be near impossible.
4. You have very limited line capacity.
5. Might be a personal choice, but avoid the standard 4 assist hook setup. Its much more dangerous for the deckhands and you will kill a lot of local fish that you can't keep at Guadalupe. This will mean you miss some hookups.
With those in mind I stuck to lower rail count days or low activity times. If there were 15+ dropper loops out I pulled it in and switched or if there were several fish being fought I pulled it in.
Over all it worked out great and I will definitely be bringing a SPJ setup on future long range trips.
