birds nest w/ spinning reel

1 hour ago, bradster said:

 i always assumed a swivel would mess with the subtle action of the bait. no?

A weightless worm maybe, but other than that, not really. It's just going to add some weight. There's a lot of downsides to using a swivel though, and your line is still going to get twisted even using a swivel.

If you don't have a boat to use to untwist your line, you can drop your line from a high place, like a bridge, or tall building, with a weight on the end. Eventually it will straighten itself out. Depending on the shape of your weight, you can tell when it stops spinning.