Advice with braid

[MuskieBait]

Knot: Palomar, improve clinch or uni...all great. You do have to make sure the knot is tied properly (neat wraps, no crossing of loops and wraps) since the line is so limp and easy to mess up the knot. Just take your time tying knots.

Spooling: Aside from electrical tape, make sure you spool it on with the drag set tight. You want to pack the braid on as tightly as possible. If it is loose, the line will dig in when it is under pressure while you fight a fish. It will also lead to trouble when you cast.

Casting: Braid is so supple that it can tend to fall off the spool on the cast, even if you don't overspool the line. At the end of each cast, do not crank the handle to close the bail. Do it manually by hand. Otherwise, it is easy for the loose slack line to fold, loop and knot. It will create horrible wind knot on your next cast.

Your reel is basically a re-branded Penn Battle...which I have and love. The rod and reel sounds a bit heavy still, so even with the braid you may still experience issue casting light lures such as a texas-rigged rubber worm. But 15lb braid is much better than 17lb mono and it should help a bit.