Braid or not

[Sightwindow]

Never braid with soft plastics. It just doesn't feel right. I feel too much too soon and miss fish for some reason. Plus I like the slightest of taps with mono and enjoy the hook set and not having to worry about ripping their lips on the hook set. I've fished with good fishermen who fish with braid in finesse situations and have never been humbled significantly.

Braid has its applications, though. Absolutely invaluable with corks at most any distance. Great for muscling redfish. And if topwater strikes are coming best far from the boat, it helps a great deal in staying connected. I find it tedious dancing with big fish on braid at the endgame.

All that said, braid is an unbelievable pain in tying knots, casting into the wind with any zip, fouling everything when a strike is missed and lure come back at the boat, being utterly unforgiving if a 18+ trout makes a surge near the boat, hard to thread through the level wind and about a thousand other things.