afterschools

We fish several times a year with a guide in the Naples area. Its a bit south of where you are but he is amazing. He is a backwater expert as well as some of the off shore areas. I have an amazing 2 hour plus video of a 150+ pounder that towed the boat several miles around the backwater last April ! Look up Chris McCubbin and tell him Ed and Scott from Canada sent you. Great guy!

I think your issue is not line strength so much as your drag. We consistently run 17 pound test (Trilene XT) and have never had any issues. When we did have a break-off it was the fluoro that broke. Heck, we have even landed mature kings on 6' ultralights and 8 pound mono (see attached). Patience is the key, but a loose drag will prevent against ripping the hooks out of their mouth and/or breaking line - provided you stop trolling to fight the fish.

Likewise. Haven't been out in a month or so due to the persistent crap weather. Was hoping to get out tomorrow. We're 60min west of Bronte so it is an extra bonus if we end up washing lures.

Let's be honest here...

Hope so too, seemed to swim away alright. I added another pic to my original post

Truth be told, we've done crazier. And by crazier I mean 6lb mono and 5' ultralight ugly sticks with 15lb salt water snook in Florida . Today was fun though. I imagine had they been 5lbs heavier or more we would have had to chase a few times. It was really just a waiting game. Let them do their runs and eventually they'll be too tired and come to the surface, can't really do anything else! It was likely a blessing we had the second one on light line. Had we had it on our regular setup the tighter drag may have ripped the single siwash right out of its mouth - it wasn't in there by much - so who knows. It'll be interesting to see how the surface temp is come the weekend... I like this top-water fishing! Will likely try and get a friend of mine from England out salmon fishing for the first time on Sunday or Monday. If you guys find where the big boys are posts are always appreciated. We let everything go so you won't even know we've been there!

Hit the water today around 7am. Had the itch bad after only getting one last Friday when the east winds were blowing, got a nice video of it being released on a GoPro if anyone is interested. First thing we noticed was the surface temp - the surface was in the mid-50s near shore. Fished for an hour around 100 FOW no takers. Out to 150 FOW same result. Blasted out to 300+ FOW (was mid-to-high 60s on the surface here), had our first mark and a knockoff but nothing after that. Decided to go back in shallow to 58F (~200 FOW). Got a nice coho, on a blue and silver grandma lure, and a couple king shakers so we decided to change our rods for ultra lights and spinning reels. Naturally the next two fish we got were ~20lb kings. They were a tonne of fun on 8lb mono with a 6' ugly stick. First one hit on a watermellon NK Mag (now chrome as it stripped the colour off - see attached image) around 11:00 and the second hit on a blue-and-chrome ripplin around 12:30. The rain started to come and steaks were waiting at home so we called it a day. Was nice catching some fish in the top 60' of the water column for a change. Cooler temps made releasing much quicker as well, if only the drive home on the QEW wasn't always such a gongshow.

Same here, east wind really messed things up.