Thank you everyone for the great advice, I took the braid off and spooled good old mono on my reels and it solved all my problems. The drag on the reels work fine and I was able to test it out with my torpedo weights on some inland rainbows over the weekend. I think I'm ready now for whatever grabs my bait even a giant drum, LOL.
The South End provides useful resources and discussion forums for those that fish The South End of Lake Michigan for Salmon, Steelhead, Perch, and Bass as well as elsewhere in the Region and Chicago area.