This might be a stupid question but don't hurt to ask. I don't know much about deep sea fishing, just the 2 trips I have been on out of Port Aransas on the 40 hr trips. Going again thru Dolphin Docks the end of August myself and 24 buddies have the whole boat for the 40 hr trip. I know they furnish rods and reels for just drop down fishing or whatever they call it. My question is when we get into a lot of fish I want to take my own rod that I can cast with lures. I have plenty of rods I use for bass fishing but I don't think they would work for deep sea fishing. So what would be a good rod and reel for what I am wanting to do and lure recommendations. Thank you for any help you can offer.

bring a medium or medium heavy setup...with plenty of line on it..if the fishing is slow, throw some swim baits or whatever you want really , get creative with depths and presentations, you never know what will happen. be sure that your line outweighs your max drag and lock it down, worst that happens is you get spooled and are left wondering what it was

^^^^ Yup...what HE said !!! I used my Striper rig for offshore. 7 1/2 ft heavy rod, Round reel with about 200 yds of line...Trilene big game 20lb. Did a good job.

yep.. big jigging spoons work well, so do buck tails.

Med heavy to heavy flipping sticks with an big Abu or something should do the trick

Thank you for the help. Guess I am gonna make a trip to bass pro shops and do some shopping.

I always carry a couple spinning rods spooled with 30# braid and a 20# mono top-shot with a big silver or gold spoon (not a deep-drop jigging spoon, a regular spoon) with a "Mr. Twister" tail, or top-water chug-bait attached. Reel's a Penn CLL 5000 attached to an Ugly Stik. Cast to every little bit of weed you see once you're offshore, there won't be many of them. Keep in mind it's very possible that the tiny little bit of weed you see on top may be the proverbial "tip of the ice berg." No telling how much weed or how many fish or what kind of fish are hanging around down there. I've hooked up to some nice dolphin doing this. If you hook a fish don't reel it in immediately, have someone else grab the other spinning rod and cast out somewhere behind where your line is. (that's why I like spinning rods, anyone nearby can sling a line out in a hurry with 30 seconds of instruction) Without palming the spool you're only gonna' be able to apply about 14 pounds of drag with this outfit, which is plenty for lots of fish. If you start catching peanuts you'll wish you'd brought three spinning rigs. Best of luck and have fun!

edited to add: And bring extra spoons and plugs. Anything with teeth will be gone in no time.