Increasing line weight for Tournaments

[Looney Tunes]

What do you think of increasing line weight to say 40 lb braid. I use 20 lb mono on my downrigger and board lines. During tournaments the fish seen to have their way with us and after a couple of runs we drop them. If we had heaver line we might be able to stop them and horse them in.

I lost several good fish during tournaments and I'm looking at all thoughts.

[Jax]

You should Not need to go heavier than 30 pound mono- with drags set correctly and appropriate rods. Did you break off alot, or just lost the fish hook popped out?

In my opinion 40 pound braid would be a pain in the A$$ if you got it tangled with your fly leader or a knot or loop in the line. Im not a fan of braid for down rigger rod set ups for salmon-trout.

I do use braid on my spinning rod set ups for fishing egg skein in the river and YES it does help to put the brakes on the kings.

[Looney Tunes]

After a couple of runs the hooks come out. I know they hooks are sharp.

[Gill-T]

Braid will pull MORE hooks out because of no stretch. Mono has more give, and lighter mono has more than heavy mono. Set drags correct and pray. Think about all the herky jerky movements of your baits. You are going to hook fish in the snout, under the chin etc. etc. With big fish that run they are torqueing the hook in the opposite direction that it entered into their skin. There is a lot of luck involved with putting the net under a fish 20+ lb fish. Thats fishing!

[GAMBLER]

Sharp hooks matter more. Hooks right out of the box need some sharpening.