Our Shimano Symmetre 3000 reels hold 150 yards of 30 lb power pro, and bull redfish routinely get more than 75 yards out, and we've been close to getting spooled several times. Of course, the near spooling are usually my children who are not as experienced keeping the drag as tight as they could until it a lot of line gets out and I have 'em tighten it up. But I personally play the drag on the tighter side, and I often have more than half the line out when playing a bull red.
I'd never risk losing fish with mono backing when playing bull redfish. I buy power pro by the 1500 ft spool so I can fill all the reels with as much line as they hold. 30 lb pp is fine for bull reds, but we've recently switched to 50 lb on most of the spinning reels so the children are more confident tightening the drag down to turn fish headed toward structure.
Earlier this year, we had a fish pick up a crab claw on a line counter levelwind spooled with 300 yards of power pro and quickly peel off 750 feet against a stiff drag setting before reaching the rocks and breaking off. We'd been catching bull redfish in that spot, but we suspect his may have been a bull black drum because it peeled off all that line without ever slowing down or any hint of turning, but it may have been a huge redfish. I've muscled in 40"+ redfish on this setup in two minutes without missing a beat, so it must have been a real monster to peel off all that line that quickly, and I was thumbing the reel for the last few hundred feet.
The bull red in the picture was caught on 30 lb pp in belle pass. The fish peeled off about 100+ yards of line and made several long runs after spooking at the boat.
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