Let's hear the stories. What's the biggest fish you've boated on the lightest line?

I didn't do it but while crappie fishing on grapevine, my buddy caught a 40lb flathead on 8lb test and a fairy wand. Took us over 45 minutes of chasing him around in the boat to get it in.

I boat 6 & 7 lb class bass, with regularity, on 8 lb line.

Largest bass on 6 lb line was a 7 lb'r on Eagle Mountain lake. I was throwing a split-shot rig on the dam. I had already caught a number of large drum that day on this rig, so when the rod loaded up, and the fish went deep, and stayed deep, I thought is was another drum. Based on that, I tightened down my drag and horsed it to the surface. Of course when I saw it was a big large-mouth, I changed my tactics very quickly and backed off the drag. Long story short, in time, I boated the fish and took her to weigh-in.

The biggest thing to remember is to keep that drag loose. Since you are using light line, your also going to be using small hooks with needle points that penetrate quickly, and can straighten very easily. Therefore, I don't "set the hook", I "sweep the hook". It is during this "sweep" that I want to hear my drag giving up some line. If I don't, then I either have a dink, or my drag is set to tight.

Flick shake on EM with 8lb line... Caught a 30 pound catfish while fishing at night on the dam... Ugliest catfish I've ever seen!

I boated a 45" musky on 6lb line with an ultralight fairy wand one time. I was walleye fishing with a tiny pink jig with a 2" fat head minnow on it when the beast hit. The hook location was as lucky as it gets; right in the corner of the fish's mouth. It probably took me 5 solid minutes to land the beats. Fortunately the reel was spooled up in mono because I had been too lazy to switch the line over to fluorocarbon earlier in the day. I'm confident the extra stretch in the mono made all the difference. Once I got the giant boat side the real fun began. All we had was a small walleye net. We managed to get the head of the fish in and then did a two man lift job to flop it up over the side of the boat. Withing seconds of coming aboard it broke the line. To this day I have no clue why a big fish like that hit a 2" minnow, but it did! I never got a weight but I'd guess the fish close to 25lbs.

I've boated, and had several blues put on my boat with fairly light line. This year a buddy put a 60ish (bottomed out my 50lb scale with ease) blue on my boat with 10lb mono. I've put numerous blues on my boat from 20-35lbs using 12lb braid. Had a fella about 5yrs ago boat a 57lb blue with 12lb cajun line.

It's just a matter of playing them right, letting them take it when they want, get it back when you can, and let the rod wear them out. And a little luck that they don't wrap you up on something.

Never ever have. But..then, again, I never ever have used light line. I know that the heartache is eminent when using hair thin line....so I avoid it. That said....I've lost plenty of DD bass on line that should have been sufficient due to my own incompetence. Lol.

Little over 13lb Lmb on whatever comes on those cheap zebco from Walmart using crappie jig from the bank and the drag was broke on the real. Got poloroids pics of weight and fish then released it.

That beats what I did Josh!

Caught a 7-5 Bass at Lake Morena in San Diego way back in the day on 6lb Ande Mono. Bit a 4 inch Western Plastics blue/purple worm on a #2 hook. Fought her for about 5 minutes before getting her in while my partner kept yelling in my ear "get her in here, you're going to lose her!" FUN!! By the way, I was using a 5'6" Shimano Speed Stick spinning rod. That's SoCal fishing!

Tail hooked a 30 lbs grass carp on 6 lbs mono on a fairy wand throwing a wacky rig. Luckily it was in a pond and he didn't have very far to run! haha.

Twice on Fork I have hooked a bass that was larger than the pound test line I was using and both times I did not execute well!!

I have one good story, but I could probably fill a short book with tales of heartache!

A few times I've caught an eight pounder and change on fifteen pound line. I was sweating the entire time. No idea why I didn't have 20 or 25 on there but it won't happen again.

Are you back from your world travels yet?