Troubles and hoggs!!!

[Abel]

So ended up having to pull the motor right before Memorial Weekend, was out for 2 weeks. Put the boat back in the water Sunday and hit some new water I've been wanting to try. Hooked 3 fish in 2 hrs, never saw the first, landed the 2nd, thought it was way smaller than it was, ended up weighing in at 47.4 after being bled and sitting on ice all night. The third we saw, said holy *&&%%& and never saw him again.

My Kodiak "sis" with her first of the year and sitting in 2nd place right now.

[BrownBear]

Great fish!

We've had our troubles with hoggs, too.... My bad. We broke off 4 before I figgered it out. How in the heck could you be breaking 60# leaders with 50# lines and good knots???? With the breaks coming above the hooks mid-leader- no tooth fraying.

Call me a dipspit, but I had grabbed an old spool of leader for tying up my rigs, one that had bounced around the boat for a year and mostly in the sun. Tried breaking it and yup. Saved a whole $8 using that old spool.

Retied all my rigs with new leader and haven't broken off another fish. Of course, we're still searching for a rematch with the hoggs. :shot:

[Abel]

I haven't had a fish break off at all running straight 20lb mono, only lost 7 fish out of 52 hookups until this past Sunday. Now I've only landed one in the last 3 trips.

[BrownBear]

...haven't had a fish break off at all running straight 20lb mono....

Wow! :eek:

The has-been commercial troller in me feels 50# is light for leaders! Good on ya, but I can't get past my old habits. :shot: Those were the first kings I've broken off in living memory.

[Abel]

I've always dealt with clear water situations and always had this mentality....I'd rather hook 10 on light line and land 3 than fish heavy gear and one hook and land one.

[BrownBear]

Used to be that way down in California where all the salmon had been seeing leaders in Alaska, BC, Washington and Oregon before they ever got to you. You'd have to go up and down the leader scale as you moved up and down the coast. Mid-summer and fall we had to fall down to 20# leaders once we got down into CA for all our spreads above 10 fathoms.... With looooooong snubbers of course! Got a little too exciting in hot water years when the slug albacore moved inshore. Did you know that a 20# albacore can stretch a 6' snubber to around 20' before it or the leader breaks? Some fast gear changes once you hit 61 degree water, and the heck with leader shy salmon.

Been dinking around with fluorocarbon for the last 10 years, especially the PLine. That stuff is about as invisible underwater as it gets, I think. I'm betting if it had been around back in my trolling days, we'd sure have iced a lot more late season kings.

[Uncle Zeek]

Been dinking around with fluorocarbon for the last 10 years, especially the PLine. That stuff is about as invisible underwater as it gets, I think. I'm betting if it had been around back in my trolling days, we'd sure have iced a lot more late season kings.

Have a bunch of mooching leaders tied for kings using 25# Seaguar flourocarbon for my June trip. Will let you know how I fare with those.

[BrownBear]

I'm betting you'll do great, but please report back!

We were using 25# Pline yesterday without an issue. Always wanted to play with Seaguar based on positive reports, but just haven't got there yet.