I'm gearing up to wrestle with swamp monsters in Northern Australia, so I'm re-spooling reels and breaking knots on scales. I can't directly answer the question, but let me give you my opinion on brand and ask a handful of questions that may help you out. If in doubt, I fish lighter than the person next to me, religiously check that the knots are re-tied frequently, and change line very often (maybe 3x in a one week fishing trip: extreme, but line is cheap relative to everything else so why take chances?).

BRAND: Fresh Maxima (not the one or two year old stuff that's on sale over the Internet!) breaks 10-15% above it's rated strength. (Much of this is due to Maxima having a 10-15% bigger volume than similarly rated lines: it's just thicker.) But in general, I'm a big Maxima UG fan when I use mono. I haven't used the new, cheaper Crystal Ivory but Chameleon is great leader material and works well in warm weather as main line (less so in the cold).

LINE TEST: Here are a few issues to consider when deciding how heavy to go:

1. How much drag are you really putting on your reel? Much less than you think! Unless you use pliers on star drags (which I've done but it's hard on the reel gears), there's no way you're going to be able to put more than 5-7lbs of drag on a Calcutta 250 or something similar. Tie some line to a hand scale, crank the drag as tight as it will go, tell your wife to hang on to the reel and watch the scale. Amazingly little. And few of us fish locked-up drags in any but rare circumstances anyway. So why fish 20lb line when you're never going to put more than 5-7lbs of strain on it?!

2. Is your line so heavy that it'd break your rod if you DID manage to put a heavy load on it? I've not been bold enough to do this, but if you load 15lb line on a salmon rod rated "10-20 lbs", tighten the drag with pliers, and then try to put 15lbs of pull through the rod I think you may end up with splinters. (You could run the same experiment by tying weights to the line, tie the line off at the handle and use the rod to lift them. This saves wear and tear on your reel.)

I'd be very interested to read what other reader's experiences have been. Any weight lifters out there?

3. The heavier the line you use, the less you fit on the reel, the less far you can cast and, most importantly, the greater the amount of drag in the water. Drag = unnatural drift = harder to fool fish.

I've recently come to the conclusion that most of the time, fish don't know/ don't care what line is. But fish are keenly aware of unnatural movements of the bait/ lure relative to current speed. Switching to lighter leaders results in more hook-ups because of more natural drifts, not less-visible lines (certain trout situations, bonefish on the flats and other special circumstances excepted).

All of the above argues in favor of light line. There are two counter arguments:

4. Heavier line is a real advantage when fishing in snaggy water. That extra thickness helps resist/ survive abrasion.

5. Heavier line also helps catch more fish by absorbing sudden shocks -- generally at hookset, sometimes in mid-fight. (Here Maxima excels, esp. versus at least some of the co-polymers such as Excalibur Silverthread that test and look very good but fail under real-life fishing conditions.)