It's certainly possible that I simply didn't know what the heck I was doing, but when I tried using braided line, I lost every fish. It was miserable...something like 6 Silvers in a row before I switched back. Haven't lost many since.

I attribute my failure to lack of stretch. Using mono is like having a fish on a rubber band - lots of stretch to accomodate jumps, runs and slow-to-react fisherman...