Beatle spins have a single hook and don't require any special techniques to make it work. Fast, slow stop and go it all will work.

Using lures has a learning curve. It isn't so much what you are using as how you are using it. I was much like you until I decided to force myself to learn. I picked one lure and fished it while paying close attention to what worked and how it worked. The first lure that I started with was a plastic worm.

Now, there is a trick you might need to try. Go ultralight and fish with 4"curl tail worms and very light weights on 6 lb line. You want to get bites. There are always a lot more little fish than there are big ones but the process is basically the same.

I found ponds that were basically infested with little stunted bass. A BIG fish might be 12" long with most running 9". I on many occasions would catch almost a hundred fish in a day as I got better. I learned how to watch a limp line for that telltale twitch of a pick-up and when and how to set the hook. No matter where I fished though there were always small aggressive bass that would teach me what to do.

Sometimes you get pecks but can't hook them. When you reel in the curly tail is gone and that led me to my next lure. A small crappie sized grub on a 1/8 oz jighead hooked those little rascals and it turned out that a lot of them were BIG bluegills. I learned that the size mattered but not as I thought. There were days when those little grub were just what even the big bass wanted. It was a struggle catching the dozen little ones for every bigger bass but I struggled through.

The nice thing about the small plastics is that they are really cheap. I didn't even use real worm hooks for the worms. I instead bent the soft gold 1/0 crappie hooks so they were shaped like the expensive bass hooks and they worked great. With 6 lb line, you don't need a super heavy duty hook.

Eventually, I added to my small plastic lures 4" worms, 4" lizard, 4" flukes, 2"3" and 4" grubs. I could stick an assortment in a ziplock bag with a little assortment of hooks and weights and fish any little puddle I ran across.

The next thing that I added was little spinner harnesses for the jigs and some small inexpensive H&H spinner baits. Each thing that I added I started small and then got bigger lures once I had mastered the method and feel of that lure.

Eventually, I added tiny torpedos, Zara puppies and small chuggers along with a few smaller shallow running crankbaits and 1/4 oz Rattle Traps. Each lure has a specific use and also several different ways to use it. By starting with the small lures you get more hits and learn faster.

I have a ton of lures now and love this kind of fishing. I still like to go to some of these ponds and fish the little lure on light lines.

Go slow and have fun. What you learn catching little fish will apply later for bigger fish. One of the reasons for using big lures is to keep the dinks to leave you alone. Dinks can be fun too if you fish light.

For years I wore polarized Forster Grants that I got at the dollar store for a buck. They did the job.

Inexpensive needle nose pliers and 8" hemostats. I also like the cheap leatherman imitations.

If you want one bait that is good to excellent for catfish, carp, trout and breams the best for all uses is worms. Anything will eat a worm with gusto.

Go into a tool store and look at the saws. There are a lot of different kinds. That is because there are a lot of different things that you might want to do with a saw and need different ones for different things. Braid is great for some uses and AWFUL for others. For finesse fishing I like monofilament. For topwater baits like a Zara, I love braid. It floats and when you make that perfect cast into a hole it will just sit there. Mono starts to sink immediately and will pull your lure out of the hole. I can sort of "walk the dog" in a hole without pulling it out. It just swings back and forth in place, and this seems to drive bass crazy. Fluorocarbon is for crystal water and shallow running lures in places where the fish get a lot of pressure. I love braise when I'm fishing Texas and Carolina rigged worms in deep water. If I am working a worm in shallow water I like mono. In shallow water, I am watching my line and mono twitches when a fish takes the bait. I even use hi-viz a lot of times and honestly, at times, the fish seem to like that.

When I am throwing spinner baits and most crankbaits I like Mono but braid works almost as well and if you are working in wood it is worthwhile because you don't lose as many lures. I prefer mon because it is a little less sensitive and you need to let a fish fully take the bait or you will snatch the lure out of its mouth on the hook set. Mono slightly delays your hook set.

I like to change lures a lot until I zero in on what they are wanting. I use Norman speed clips. They are tiny, weigh almost nothing and once you learn how to work them lure changes take a couple of seconds. I've never had one fail on me.

I like spinning reels for a lot of things. Primarily because I can carry several extra spools and change the line if I want or need to. For a while, ABU made casting reels that allowed quick change of spools and they were nice too.

If I could only have one line I guess that it would be mono.

I'm sorry, I failed to comment on the base part of your question. Many times in the night when I would be fishing alone I would have visitors. In the night you are in a different world. The animals that hide and/or run in the daylight are much more apt to approach you in the cover of darkness. Some of the things that I would hear or see as little more than shadows were not easily explained.

Less often, out in the swamps, I would sense and be made aware of the fact that I was not alone. the birds would suddenly go dead quiet and there would be sounds of something big moving around. It is beyond creepy with things get quiet and you just KNOW that something is near and watching you.

Honestly, I don't know anyone that has spent much time alone out in a deep wild areas that hasn't had these experiences. When you are alone you are more aware and paying more attention to the world around you and you are almost never alone and unwatched.

I have a dozen or so Ugly Sticks and fish two days a week. Ugly Sticks made their name for being TOUGH and I use them for catfishing and catch some big cats with them. They used to be fiberglass and are not sexy or great for bass fishing. they now have a graphite line that is supposed to be pretty good. I've never tried one of their flyrods but the kind of fish I'm trying to catch are not fly fishing type creatures.

They are not and never have been the cheepo rods like you see for almost nothing. they run from about 35 dollar up. I especially like their tiger series for big hard pulling fish. A lot of the fish my ugly sticks pull in would eat the little fish most people fish for.

Another thing about the older ugly sticks is that they LAST almost forever. I have several over 20 years old with thousands of hours of fishing on them. You can't break them. I've used braid in th 65 lb class and never had a rod break.

I used to fish alone most of the time and often hiked to my favorite places. You couldn't drive there so it got rid of most the riffraff. One thing that I always had was a gun. In Texas, you have always been legal to carry when you were in the outdoors and now I have a concealed carry license. Only once have I ever needed it other than for overly friendly snakes and one crazy dog. Some idiot kids took a shot at the water in front of me with a 22 rifle to scare me. I rolled into a bush drew and sent a couple of rounds well over their heads. The roar of that 357 mag must have sounded like a howitzer. I could hear them running and screaming for 5 minutes. Sitting out on a levy or a lonely beach at night you run into a lot of strange people. Those kids were the only ones that were that stupid though. I refuse to let stupid people take away my peace of mind. You have to understand, in a place where lots of people habitually carry a gun it generally makes for pretty peaceful folks. You have to be mentally deficient to mess with someone.

I have always wondered, is a snelled hook knot stronger than a palomar or any of the other better knots?

I suspect that it is a small flathead. They are not native to Florida but it was caught from a pond and people put what they want in their ponds and often even in public waters. Pythons aren't native to Florida either but you have them. It could be a brown bullhead but the mouth looks wider than the bullheads that I usually catch.

The color of flatheads is EXTREMELY variable. Where I live now they are called Yellow Cats and really are yellow like butter. Where I used to live they were called Opps that is short for Appalousa Cats because they are colored much like the flanks of an Appaloosa horse, a mottled brown with white and/or black spots. I have seen them called willow cats and been sort of green with black spots. They seem to adapt their color to the water that they are in.

Where I live the bullheads are yellow, nearly black or brown without spots but that may vary other places. I wish I could find a nice little mudhole pond full of bullheads. They are great trotline baits for big blues and flatheads but where I live now they are hard to find.

I understand why a lot of people put a spin cast reel on a spinning rod. It is hard to find light and medium light action casting rods and the spinning rods actions better match the use most people put a spin cast
to. Zebco makes a nice line of lighter rods but they are hard t find except as part of a combo package. I have bought them on Ebay though.

It will work fine but isn't as comfortable and your hold on the rod isn't as good as it would be with a casting rod.

OK, I'll answer this in three parts. Part 1 is simple, you don't hunt elephants with a BB gun and you don't hunt bunnies with an elephant gun. Your equipment needs to balance well with your lure and the prey that you are fishing for. This starts with your line weight, the reel and the rod all need to be in the same class and be the right weight for the lure you want to cast.

Part 2, Casting reels come in many different sizes. I have them from my old favorite Bantum 100 and ABU 3600s through 7000 and some big Penn reels. Smaller reels cast smaller lures better! When you match thee with fairly whippy light action rods they throw light lures about as well as a spinning reel but with better control.

Part 3, What causes the backlashes??? When you cast the speed of the lure at the moment you let it go is set in stone. That speed, how much it weighs, how well it passes through the air and the friction of your line and in the mechanics of the spool all go into a formula that determines how far it will go.

If you only wanted to throw one lure and always wanted it to go the maximum distance you could adjust it so that it would fly and the lure would slow to a stop and fall at the same time as the spool ran out of momentum and stopped turning. The problem is that you want to use different lures and want to throw different distances. If you adjust too tight you lose distance and if you adjust too loose you risk condor sized bird nests. As your thumb gets better educated you will get fewer of those but any time that you are casting light lures with the more full-sized bass reels you are going to have some of these to deal with. The light lure loses its speed faster than the large heavily loaded spool slows down and begins to overrun. Too some extent you can help your self a little by taking off some of your line until you get better with your thumb. The smaller diameter of a less loaded spool reduces how much line it is pouring off and gives you a little more time to react. As time passes you can add line and even reduce the tension on your spool.