I have fished with braid but at that time I wasn't really up with the play with knots for joining a nylon shock leader to the lighter and much thinner, braid. Now I have plenty of experience and I would willingly give braid another shot. There are a few unusual advantages, one being it can cut through weed you may have picked up on the main line, this doesn't happen with nylon. I would also suggest you throttle back on your first few cast, this to get the feel of how well the rod and the line work together. Another advantage, and this can be big, is you can reduce the size of the sinker, again this will depend on your rod and how well the two work together. I also have a fouteen foot Okuma rod and I have drilled out the wooden spud and replaced this with a spud that is 30cms longer. This gives me a huge clearance of broken wave tops when in the rod rest. This is coupled with an Okuma open face reel, for the life of me I can't recall the name of either.

At present on my other two rods I use mono in the 4 kilo range. This is ample for the size fish we hook whilst general fishing on Hawke's Bay beaches. It is quite rare to hook into a large fish, and a snapper's teeth only impacts on the hook length not the line. I have landed several Rays up to 64lb on 9lb line, the only time this proves difficult is if there is a big swell to negotiate or large breakers to get the fish through. Most open face reels come with a spare spool so this need not be an issue, if the sea is rough use the other spool with heavier line.