Braided line is prohibited!  However, there are always exceptions to the rule. We use braided line for a few main things on party boats vertical jigging, trolling or while fishing deep drop trips past 600 foot of water. Besides these two applications we only use braid as backing for our deep water and game fishing set-ups so we have extra line capacity to prevent being spooled by a monster fish! We do NOT recommend ever fishing straight braid for bottom species. This is not a good thing for a few reasons: Fish tend to shake the hook out a ton easier when fishing straight braid because monofilament has a bit of a shock absorbing characteristics since it tends to stretch a bit, but braided line does NOT stretch at all, thus when you hook a big fish on the braid they can shake out the hook a lot easier. The easy way to avoid this issue is to add a long top shot to your reel to ensure there is some braid in the water while bottom fishing. The length of the top shot depends on what trip you plan, if you do a half day we will be fishing 40-50 foot of water so you want about 15-20 foot of top shot so 1/3 or more of your line will be mono. If you’re fishing an all-day in depths of 60-90 foot you want about 30 feet of mono top shot. For a 12 or 39 hour when were fishing depths of 120-150 foot you want about 40-50 foot of mono top shot on top of your braid to allow some shock absorption. Straight braid also cuts through the water more than mono. When fishing all braid then all the lines drift together nicely but when 90% of people are using mono and some are using braid the braid cuts through the water better and tends to tangle with the mono filament fisherman. The top shot we have already discussed stops this issue Braid and mono getting tangled makes a SERIOUS mess that cannot be undone. When you use a long top shot you decreases the chances of being tangled braid to mono. What you want to do is this, when you feel a line rubbing yours you want to reel in as quickly as possible that way when it does get tangled or if it does at all you will be tangled mono to mono which can be easily undone. This will prevent you from having to cut your braided line, because  when braid get tangled with mono that is the only way to get it out is by cutting out the braid first. Braided line is also more common on spinning rods, this is another reason we don’t recommend braid because we don’t recommend spinning set-ups for any fish bigger than a few pounds. Grouper fishing takes a strong drag and 99% of spinners don’t have drag systems big enough to stop even the smallest groupers when they are digging back into their holes. Conventional reels have bigger drag systems by default and are way better for targeting larger fish. However, a spinner or a light conventional is a great way to target the smaller snappers, but personally I NEVER bother bringing a spinning rod for bottom fishing deeper than 60 foot because party boat fishing with other people requires you to get a fish off the bottom into the boat as quickly as possible to prevent tangling and to increase your success rate. This requires tackle strong enough to horse up the big fish, and spinning set ups just don’t have the power! You can bring your spinning rod on 5 and 10 hours for bottom fishing but for longer trips the spinning rods should only be pitch rods, flat line rods, or used for light knocker rigging where the crew tells you it would be okay with the current and swing of the boat. These are all reasons braid isn’t the best, but you can use it if you use the top shot, and as long as you have experience deep sea fishing from a party boat!