Sk8man

Whole lot of possibilities but keep in mind that some of the fish will be hitting out of aggression rather than a pure feeding response and sometimes they just don't get ahold of the hook itself or they may even hit the attractor rather than the fly or spoon. Additionally as time rolls on the mature kings mouths harden up so penetration of the hook may suffer so you can be doing everything right and still come away without a fish

Floyd there aren't any adequate words when it comes to situations such as this but you and your family have our deepest sympathy. Cancer is a devastating illness for both the person directly affected and also those to around them. Like many people I've lost a number of family members, father and friends to it over the years and a first cousin just last week and it never becomes any easier and especially so when a spouse or child. Our hearts go out to you and we sincerely hope that you find peace in your own way. Les

backonerie you have a PM

I stopped using snubbers back in the early 80's. The reason: lost fish from poor hookups. I gave things some thought and concluded that by leaving my drag fairly loose and with the stretch inherent in the mono along with the stretch of the snubber along with the forward momentum of the fish was leading to the poor hookups. That was before fluoro too I should note. I got rid of the snubbers and began setting my drag tighter to the point that it takes a fairly good tug to activate the clicker. Again, this was in the world of mono lines and leaders and my results improved dramatically. Wire fishing is a different "animal" in terms of the stretch issue but the same approach has worked well. The main thing to remember not only with salmon but fishing in general is that the line between you and the fish needs tension on it at all possible times and is pretty much the only thing between success and failure and any slack can lead to failure so the drag setting is critical.....not enough and slack can occur and too much can risk break offs (as well as poor knots and unseen line abrasions). If your drag is set properly (i.e. tight enough) the weight of the fish on the sharp hook should supply enough pressure for a good hookup providing the fish actually has the hook in his mouth keeping in mind that as the season rolls on the mature salmons mouth hardens so a little more pressure may be required for a good hookup and again sharp hooks are often assumed and not carefully examined and corrected. The combination of hook sharpness and proper drag setting are the most critical aspects and keeping firm pressure not allowing slack when bringing in will bring success. A factor not always considered in the so-called "poor hookups" is that the salmon (or other fish) may not actually have the hook itself in its mouth and instead has accidentally grabbed the line or spoon or front part of the fly or that on downriggers in particular the inherent slack created initially as the line releases the fish shortly drops whatever part he has in his mouth. I'm sure this isn't news for a lot of folks but thought it is worth mentioning for new folks to the scene

Look at it this way Dave....there are a lot of people out there that have never caught a king let alone a thirty pounder

WTG Dave. a case of perseverance paying off. You put your time in and and dialed it in. Good going.

You guys must have caught them all on those small to medium spoons

Roughly 2 5/8 through 4 inches works well on the Finger Lakes. Can you catch fish on magnums? sure... but not as frequently.

Probably not a great idea to get into here and maybe especially this year. One of the great things about this site for me is that there is usually little drama and things are more about sharing ideas and learning than getting into issues that often lead to conflict by their very nature (e.g. like politics and religion etc.). My vote is to keep it focused on fishing stuff that we all have a vested interested in.

Ditto

Sounds as though there is something sharp or abrasive somewhere in the take up path that is severing and/or abrading the strands since it isn't occurring in just one spot toward the end of the cable which would in that case indicate possibly fast retrieval rate of a heavy weight with "jerking" going on severing strands near the termination where the stress would be greatest.. I'd do a real careful check of everything you can in the wire path (maybe with a magnifying glass?) Probably wouldn't take much of a rough edge somewhere with that type of pressure on it.