How am I doing? Jeaulous of your hookups, that's how!!!!! My landing ratio is higher though, currently at 100%. The problem is my hook up to landing ratio is one to one ;-) The best advice I can give you is to dump the blood knot. Plainly stated it sucks! A double or triple surgeons is tons more reliable, both from a user error perspective (it's hard to tie one wrong), and from a knot strength perspective. Give it a try and see for yourself. The blood knot is the most overated, and one of the most difficult to tie knots out there. Not just my opinion, tests back that up. Check the tests on Maxima too... It ranks pretty far down on the list... The reason most folks can land a big fish on 8lb maxima is because it's really 12 lb test. The problem is compared to other 12 lb test lines it's not that great.