I fished sunday with a buddy, and we only saw a few fish. Fortunately my wife is a saint, and could tell that i needed some more decompression before monday, so i headed out sunday evening to highway cone's lake to see what i could find. To make a long story short, I hooked 3 fish, all of which broke me off. two of the three were big fish in the 20 lb range (one female was really big.) I was fishing a bigger leader than i normally do (3x instead of 4x) and still managed to lose 3 fish.well, that meant i just had to take a vacation day tuesday. i had heard rumors of 20 lb fish in a pond about 30 minutes from the house. the rumors are true. i hooked the biggest carp i've ever seen...probably close to 30 lbs. i had good control of the fish but he made a final run to the lilly pads, and i had to put the breaks on him...pop...that was that. a 4th fish broken off. i hit a few other spots, and landed a small 5 lb fish and an 8 lb fish (great take...i jigged the fly in front of him while hiding in the bushes and he sort of jumped through the water column to eat it...really cool.) i also sawsome more big fish in the high teens, maybe 20 lbs...hooked 3 of them, broke them all off. so i've now broken 7 of the last 9 fish off...i would say 6 of these fish would be 15 lbs minimum...several i know were 20 and two really big ones. this week i'll chuck all my tippet spools and leaders, and buy all new stuff. still, i can't help but think it is not an equipment failure...more of a case of lost mojo...i'll bet highway cone stole it...he looked smug today ignoring my flies...heh heh...