Baitcasting Jigs and other lightweight lures ?

[Brad in MS]

this may be a completely stupid question.

...but i was trying today to cast a small crankbait, a strikeking of some sort. a "bitsy minnow" i think...which is a crankbait designed for crappie and other panfish.

i could never cast it with any of my bait casting setups. i had to switch over to my spinning combo.

is there a trick to doing this? i tried setting the spool dial back to 0 and still could not cast it very far. and backlash several times.

i know i could put some weight in front of the lure but i figured that would cause the thing not to "swim" correctly.

even still i caught a nice 2 lb bass right at the creek edge.

are there certain reels or maybe a longer rod designed to cast these cool little baits? a longer rod would be hard to use where i fish. so many trees and stuff.

again sorry for the newbie question but i am fairly new to much of this stuff.