If you're fishing Kenai kings, or any river that has a big strain of fish, bring a rod with some serious back bone. I've heard a lot of stories about a lot of people breaking a lot of rods on big fish. Your choice of rod in a 15-50 or something like that would be my preference. A reel comparable to the Calcutta 400 or Abu 6500. I'd go with at least 30 lb mainline (I'd go berkley high vis big game) and it's not uncommon to use leaders over 40 lb test. A guide I fished with used 80. If you're fishing bait, fish heavier leaders than seems neccesary. There's no reason not to on non-leader shy fish, and these things have whicked-sharp teeth. If you're using hardware like k-fish you would be safe using a little lighter leader cause it's less likely they'd swallow a plug to the point where the leader would be rubbing their teeth. Fighting with light gear is fun, but if you go all the way to Alaska, and fish somewhere like the Kenai, you might get one chance at a real good fish, and you don't want to miss it due to not fishing heavy enough gear. Hope some of this helps, tight lines, FC.