Boomstick

I run lighter braid and a mono or fluoro leader as necessary on all of my spinning reels to avoid line twists, which really does work, and have mono on my baitcasters. Of course, I don't have a heavier casting rod for flipping and pitching into heavy cover or anything like that either. Was just wondering if anybody else does the same thing or if I'm totally insane.

I say get the brightest, most gaudy colored line you can. Maybe if you fish near a leaking nuclear power plant, you can make it turn radioactive and get a nice, healthy green glow. I hear bass love that!

Berkley Lightning seems like a decent rod from my limited experience, but if you're on a budget you might also want to consider the Cherrywood and spend more money on lures and line, that's what I'd do. You'll likely be very happy with the Lightning too though.

Return it to Daiwa and get a new one. Then sell it to me for real cheap and buy a Shimano. That or wait out the 3-4 weeks (couldn't be a worse time of year either) and then enjoy your new reel, I'm sure the replacement will be fine.

This happens time to time with lighter braid and especially on certain brands that may not use as many strands. Spiderwire is very good, I put 15lb test on my son's spinning reel and have no issues with line twist and no issues with it digging into itself (although come the colder month's it's still a possibility), but I like the Daiwa J-Braid even better, it seems to frey a little bit less. With some other brands of braid especially with lighter line, you may have issues. I also backed it with a few solid wraps of monofiliment as well. I would say I put just enough on to make sure the spool is solidly covered in every spot, but not much more than that.