Have been using braid for some time without any issues. At one of the Niagara Falls Fishing Expo's I sat in a seminar where one of the Charter Capt.'s that was participating in the seminar said that he used braid on his downriggers. Thought about changing and made the move over to it. I found that it made it easier to detect those fish that get hooked and swim along. The only negative was with the rigger release that I was using which utilized a nylon/plastic pin that you rapped the line around. I had been using this type of release since the mid 1980's. The original one was called the Wil-Jer. What was occurring was the braided line was cutting a groove into the pin. After some research on rigger releases I switched over to a Black's release that has a steel pin on it which solved the problem.