Well, lessee, DR, I catch very few fish other than salmon on this rig, but mostly because I troll fast when using a hotshot and spoon - probably 2.5 MPH minimum. Never have caught a dogfish, and occasionally I do get a rockfish or lingcod, but I don't think it's because of my leader length - I've caught probably more of these fishing straight herring with no flasher.

And smolt, I'm actually using 12 lb diameter line, Power Pro seems to call it 50 lb but that's just the way they rate these "super" lines, I don't really believe it. The reason I use Power Pro I explained earlier, and the reason I don't use their 30 pound or smaller like is that anything smaller than their 50 pound won't stay in the downrigger release. And I settled on 25 pound leader more for convenience - I get a big spool of the stuff and use it for all my salmon fishing, herring rigs mostly but also on spoons and even on sockeye rigs. I like Trilene Big Game as it is both hard and streatchy - a good shock absorber. It has great action on bare sockeye hook rigs. It resists abrasion from teeth and it resists shock from sudden insults like a big hog jumping 5 feet out of the water and landing on the flasher. And the places I fish are sometimes crowded and require heroic efforts with my direct drive Penn 109 to stop the fish from tangling up with the inevitable neighboring boat(s) gear or wires, or if they do then I need every bit of that 25 lb to keep him from breaking me off while the nitwits decide it's my line they are setting the hook into instead of a fish . Finally, there is the seal that grabs my fish and forces me to land him and the fish too. Have that happen a few times and you'll wish for that 50 lb. line and more