I'm not so sure it's the rain that affects the way large mouth bass will bite as much as it is the cloud cover. Bass don't have eye lids and tend to hang close to cover and shade on sunny days and are more active on cloudy days. Also, how do they know it's raining when their submerged in water?

Buy the best quality reel you can afford. Cast it easy to start out, don't go for distance. Start with monofilament line to learn with before switching to fluorocarbon. Mono is less likely to birds nest. Finally, practice, practice, practice!