Texan: New to fishing + Questions from a new guy.

[Bduck]

Welcome to BFT, in our part of the country (Utah) our lakes are capped with ice. They belong to the ice fishermen but soon they will be breaking up for the bank tanglers & boaters. 
When spooling your bait caster with line make sure your drag is set snug, the gears will engage while reeling line while holding the line snug as well allowing line to level across spool. The baitcasting reel is used for many different types of fishing. I along with many others here boat troll here whereas a bait caster is a favorite reel to use. The drag is designed to be used according to the force caught at the hook end which is adjusted to allow line to feed out preventing line from breaking and losing your presentation. This aids in bringing in a lunker you may have caught but it also aids us trollers when snagging onto a stationary something that it will feed line out in the same manner. When drag adjustment is loosened to minimum causing free spooling, this is not what you want when casting so be sure to keep drag adjuster snug with gears engaged. On most baitcasting reels there is a lever of some type, a flip lever or push button, is the line release which puts reel spool in free spin mode. This once released make sure your thumb is on the line spool preventing bird's nest. This is the casting mode or for us trollers a line release mode. You also need to learn how to use that thumb while casting to prevent from uncontrollable free spooling which the bird nest will occur. There is usually a small slide button on one side of reel which engages a clicker. This clicker also prevents free spooling while lever is in release mode which is what I use at times while letting out line once again for trolling, also when reeling or turning the handle will put the reel back into reeling mode.  Going back to the drag setting, once you cast your line (assuming you are bank fishing), and engaging gears for reeling you should be able to by hand try to pull line from reel. This is where you can adjust the drag by making small adjustments until line spool starts loosening. You want this just in case of that lunker that's going the opposite direction from you. While going thru a fight is where you can further adjust the drag either way, too loose won't let gears engage enough while reeling. You do not always need to keep adjusting drag because of smaller catches. By learning this helps develop your skill & preference on how to adjust your reel so your comfortable using it.