In case you're interested in opinions on how much a customs duty might be (to be clear, I am not a customs broker and may be wrong, in which case I shall carry no liability for any mistakes):

Per harmonize tariff system (HTS), it seems that fishing rods (article 9507.10.0040) may incur 6% tariff and fishing reels (over $8.45, article 9507.30.6000) may incur 3.9% tariff. Now, reels appear to be subject to special treatment according to recent US–Japan trade agreement and may incur 0.9% tariff starting in early 2020, but retailers have to enter these items in their customs documents properly (with "JP" prefix before the article number).

UPS seems to include their customs brokerage fees in shipping charges, DHL does not seem to do so. This may be the reason why PLAT, Digitaka, and others prefer DHL. If customs clearance fees from DHL weren't too high (I am afraid they might depend on article's cost from what I have seen on the web, but this is a pure speculation at this point), I'd probably go for the DHL option...

Maybe Alphahawk could shed some more light on his experience with the Fedex shipment.