When spoon fishing, especially when going barbless, expect to lose a fair amount of fish.Not much you can do...just part of the game. Using a sickle style hook can help as well as offsetting the hook point a bit but again, I have my worst hook to landed ratio when spoon fishing. That being said, I still fish them a lot.

You can decrease the number of breakoffs by doing what others have said and bump up the leader size. Fluorocarbon is worthless for spoon fishing.

I have used straight mono, braid with a 20 foot mono leader, and hi viz mono with a 20 foot mono leader. With the leaders, I use a nail knot tool to attach the leader and it has worked good for me. My favorite setup is the last but will use any of the three with confidence.

I would have never imagined using straight braid to the spoon but if Stam says so, by golly I'm sure it would work. I would not have had the confidence to do that without someone like him saying so.