you'll probably like it.
I noticed my newest Lami has the smallest trigger I've ever seen on a bait rod. It seemed offensive until I loaded the reel, and it's very cozy.
IMO, a baitcaster is going to be way more accurate than a spinning rod.
I can cast 1/8 oz with my old Shakespeare Tournament 1740 on 5' Montague Flash cane - I bet with practice you could cast 1/16 oz with the right rod and that reel.

look at this Trev,
Lami makes an inshore casting rod with no trigger, and glass/graphite blend.
yes, they're proud of it.
https://www.amazon.com/Lamiglas-Casting ... 692011_1_8

Sounds perfect for tinkering.
There are a few rod lines offering 1/16 oz low end capacity on a salty baitcaster.
https://www.tackledirect.com/falcon-sc- ... g-rod.html
But I ran across this range of lighter inshore rods, their shorter ML rods look pretty perfect for a wide range of fishing, and even their medium rods start at 1/8 oz.
http://www.13fishing.com/omen-green-2/

Small jigs can be killer for seatrout, and give you good depth control over grass, so there's kind of a whole inshore trout tourney school built around soft-tip (fast mid) baitcast rods.
Honestly, they're fished in conditions where a fly rod would shine.

A 3" paddle tail probably weights between 1/16 and 1/8-oz all by itself, so you'd be casting over 1/8-oz - I've cast a few with just a kahle hook in super-skinny water, and rigged these for friends who don't fly fish.
Certainly smaller ones weigh less.
Neutral density swimbait, TSL grasswalker, weighs 1/4 oz (and casts like a bullet).
Even rods rated 3/8-2-oz, I've free-shrimped just fine, so a soft touch can cast/fish near-weightless on a baitcaster, well below the light-end rating.
If you're trying to optimize cast distance, sticking to the rating on each end is appropriate. Too light and too much effort will backlash when the lure stalls, and too much weight will flex the rod too far to get good speed from the rod.

A long-leader cigar cork bait rig with a small 2" live shrimp is next to impossible to cast with a baitcaster, because the weightless cork acts like a parachute, though it zips through the water for spooky pier trout. Only fish these on XUL spinning tackle.

If you want to do it new, I'd go with the Lew's reel in my link above.
If you want to go old, and about half the cost, a good condition Lew's BB-1 variant, which are all over ebay.

I'd stick with 10-12 lb mono or fluoro.

Patient ebay, wait for a Falcon Glass rod to turn up. But I also wouldn't hesitate to buy Falcon graphite - they're all 1 piece.
There are whole bunch of rods brought up on this thread, but you should look for one that matches the line, minimum lure weight 1/8 oz, and max lure weight 3/8 to 1/2 oz.
As a rule, longer rods are easier to cast, because they develop more line speed with smooth controlled casts.

line - Seaguar all the way.

I just made the steelhead connection - for new I'd look at larger capacity like Lew's Super Duty or the new BB-1.
Check the ebay vendor in my post I quoted above.
http://www.ebaystores.com/JBC-Outfitter ... 34.c0.m322

Long rod for steelhead - think I'd be looking at 7-1/2' or longer.
Okuma makes some good moderately priced rods, like the SST - there's a 7'10" medium steelhead rod SST-C-7101MGM.
But the range of rods from 7' to 8' is a pretty good overlap for bass, inshore, and steelhead.

a single post about computer chip in one model reel hardly surmises the content of this thread
I brought this thread back up because I bought my first low-profile baitcaster this summer, and liked it enough to buy a second along with a rod that fit a hole - these are very likely my last.
I fish them alongside my classic - now venerable - Lew's.
(and I also bought a Meek 30)

Quite a bit of the thread discusses where to prioritize what tackle - each has a place where it shines above the others, and places where having it in your hand would be obstinate if not pointless. Moving water is a great fly rod advantage. Stealthy fly casting (only) to fish sign is another. If making 30 blind casts is what's required to find fish, using the fly rod is probably obstinate, and using other methods makes more sense - and is more enjoyable.

the thread certainly fits in the context of this forum

Bill Muth, who posts occasionally on this forum, mostly fishes from his collection of early postwar Pfluegers.
Marc, appgap on Clark's board, goes bass fishing with c. 1910 Shakespeare NLW reels (I helped him single out those reels for their quality).
Last time I went reservoir bass-fishing, I caught bass on my Thomas/Talbot combo, and the Arjon/Altex combo in the forum masthead photo - I also fly fished slow-sipping white bass in a trico hatch.

Honestly, if your goal is plugging the bank from your canoe or pirogue, and to educate your thumb, pretty tough to beat the right Heddon cane bait rod, narrow spool pre-WWI Shakespeare reel, 10- to 15-lb braided silk or nylon - and a line winder to let your braid dry at the end of the day (and let you restore your base level wind).
You can loop-on fluoro leader (in the old days it was silk gut) and tie on all the lures you want, though one of my favorite lures is a buzz bait simply slid inside the loop on the end of the braid.
Mason, Gudebrod,and Woodstock all sell new traditional soft nylon and dacron braid - the Gudebrod is "Meatmaster", available in 100-yd spools.
Even micro-baitcasting is nothing new - diminutive prewar Shakespeare Tournament freespool, which sings with 1/8 oz on 4-lb silk braid.


If you want something more versatile, the venerable Lew's will cover everything you want to do.




a rod we haven't broached is St. Croix's Legend S-glass baitcaster - they're pretty proud of it, about the same cost as Lami G1000 Pro, and it's also getting rave reviews
https://www.tackledirect.com/st-croix-l ... -rods.html
https://stcroixrods.com/products/legend-glass-casting

Perfect call, dog-walking jointed mirrolures. Brings back a S. Padre dawn - long run in the dark to Oilfield Flat - where dog-walking a red mirrolure brought my first trout to hand.
We immediately drifted into such fish sign, I put down the bait rod, grabbed the slime-line-rigged fly rod, Fence Lake Roach (below), and almost limited out (limit was 10 back then).
I'll also admit to not carrying my jointed plugs anymore - TSL grasswalker has obviated them for me, and starting the morning with pink is almost cheating.


pink Trout Support Lure

It just occurred to me that I never have seen any one cast a bait very far. Plugs, spoons, jigs yeah, not bait.

Two things you need to see then, free shrimping and surf casting.
Both work best with a baitcaster, because there's no jerk in the cast.
People buying surf-specific tackle go for NLW reels - Avet, Sealine - to get maximum cast distance with their bait.
(as I've been pointing out about Lew's reels, they pretty much duplicate the non-level-wind cast by using a narrow spool and disengaged rider)

That big freespool service reel is especially good for boat fishing, trolling or squidding.
Also a good reel to take to the surf or jetties for the combination of line capacity and cast-ability.
You might have more fun fishing the jitterbug on the smaller size baitcasters we've been discussing, but I can especially see the Rocket zinging a spoon.
In my small Pflueger collection, I have a Norka (back right - Akron spelled in reverse), which is a prewar version of the Rocket LW in nickel-silver, also before the star drag - just a little less expensive than the Meek 30 in 1940.

Even earlier version of the NLW free-spool is the Pflueger Bond, front right, listed as a tarpon reel in 1924.

Also worth mentioning, the old-style leather thumb brake. I have 3 reels wearing these, this is a 4Bros Beacon.

Many times, that Coleman lantern on a board on the beach was the only stationary reference point for night-time surf fishing.
Today, people always come to my campsite to check it out - great conversation starter, still with packs of mantles in the plastic storage box.
At the time I bought it, could have instead purchased one of the new propane lanterns, but I wanted a scout-water lantern.
Still have a great Coleman single burner scout-water stove, and it still works great - they call it a backpacking stove, but of course, it's not.