Trolling Strategy w/ 30's and 50's

Bjack,
My two cents, which is totally opposite togs, your going to have your heart broken. There are plenty of 150+ fish out there. Plus please, do not fight any fish for more than an hour, it'll just kill the fish and the meat will be garbage, if you're on a fish for an hour and not making much progress just cut the line or push up the drag.

Tog,
Two points. 1) it may be sport fishing but if your going to kill a fish you should use the meat not waste it. You know as well as I do what tuna burn is and any fish you fight fo over an hour is going to be burnt. 2) Even the 115 pound women I fish with can handle 80Ws on 6ft tuna sticks.
My point is that there are lots of big fish out there and you have to make a decision. Sure the light stuff will be more fun on the 40 pound long fn and rat yellows, but you have to accept that you're going to get spooled if a decent bigeye or the lady in the blue suit comes calling. OTOH if you go with the heavier stuff it can be a little more tiring in a long fight. BTW- I agree with you on what hits where, I've caught plenty of eyes and blue marlin off the outter and inner riggers.

Tog,
Your certainly right there, you need the gimbal belt and harness or a chair. I don't think I'd be confotable fighting a fish, even on a 30, without the belt and harness. ****, I even use the old fashioned style belts when codfishing.

Tog,
I forgot to metnion re: the newells, ask crazy Al what happened the last time he hooked a tuna on his Newell on my boat.

Bennie,
I have't cut off any 150 pound fish. I use heavy stuff 80Ws spooled with 100 and its never taken us more than 1/2 hour to boat any fish, even the 500+ pound blue marlin that we have released.

Tog,
Some of that west coast stuff is really neat, but, as you said, expensive. Have you seen any of the accurate reels? One place you can find some of that stuff is on e-bay.