Need advice about rod type

[woodbutcher62]

Hello friends, I am new to the site and relatively new to salt water fishing. I live in NW Arkansas and only get to Florida once or twice a year. I want to do some surf fishing and need advice on which rods would work best. I recently bought a couple spinning reels (Cabela's) Salt Striker 65. I also have 2 Penn Senator 6/0 reels, a Penn 209 and a Penn 309. I bought a cheap spinning rod from wal mart a couple weeks ago while in Florida and caught several whiting, trout and catfish on the spinning rig. Looks like the Senator 6/0 needs a much heavier rod. We would like to use a kayak to drop the bait and would like to catch some sharks and larger fish. We will be in the panhandle area near St. Joe and near St Vincent's Island. Of course we would like to keep a few edible fish as well. Price is a consideration of course. We release fish that we don't eat. Thank you for any advice you might have. Dave