Now that I fish mostly for pan fish with lite weight lures and jigs I use spinning reels/ rods exclusively. When I was bass fishing out of my bass boat in the past I used mostly bait casters which when matched to the right rod could easily outcast a spinning reel especially with the larger/ heavier lures used for bass. The mechanics of fishing with a bait caster are simpler and when you need to throw out 500 casts a day they offer the most efficient way to do that. The pro bass guys now are starting to use more and more spinning rods and reels but mostly for lite weight finesse patterns and drop shotting. If you want to throw out a top water, jerk bait, swim bait, spinner bait or Carolina rig a bait caster is the way to go. The learning curve for a bait caster is significantly shorter if you use quality well matched equipment. There are 20 to 50 dollar spinning reels that are Ok to use especially for the novice fisherman but one needs to spend 3 times that or more for a decent bait caster.