Well, I pulled the trigger on this combo. I bought a 4000 stradic FK and a 7.6' redbone medium 12-17lb rod. The rod is quite nice and reasonably priced. I bought the two piece which is easier for me to travel with. I travel between RSA and USA frequently and use this benefit in my life to fish the Florida Keys as frequently as I can. The Reel, ...... wow....... Not sure there is anything I could possibly wish for that this reel does not offer. One really nit picking observation is the plastic drag knob on the spool. Would have been a nice little adder to just make that alloy. Guess is can't rust this way! Stradics have always been one of my favorites, and I found myself disappointed that they stopped the FJ. However the FK is everything the FJ was and more. I really like the all silver color and the cosmetic design as well. Not that that catches fish, but it is a beautiful piece of work. I had been using Accurate Twin spin SR6 reels. Sold 2 of them them and will not likely go down that path again. Strong yes, huge line capacity yes, drag was fair to average. However they were rough feeling and the drag adjustment was like 1/16" rotation of the knob to go from perfect to nearly locked down. No resolution to carefully set it. The drag clickers worked sometimes and then they don't. The threaded spool lip came undone and fell to the bottom of the sea on me. They supported the product 100% and always repaired and replaced anything I needed. The frequency just became a bit too much for my interest. I caught some huge fish on these Accurate reels and they were perfect to handle bigger fish with such a tiny little reel. That was the attraction, a 10oz reel that holds 220 yards of 20lb braid and a strong drag. Using the stradic FK and comparing them to the SR6 the FK wins that contest 100% in almost every way. It holds 170 yards of 30lb PP with a stronger drag at the same reel weight! Not to mention I can get three stradics for the price of one SR6I've now used and owned some of the nicest reels ( or at least the most expensive) and have come full circle back to the stradic, if there is a better value for an inshore reel, I've not used it yet.
