Thanks for the comments.
Yeah, I got the bail arm problem sorted. Rotating the spool to the stop before casting fixed that issue. Don't want to go swimming again!
The loop you see at the top of the pole is a poorly twisted, very stiff leader. I am still working on perfecting the twisted bit and the leader I used is too stiff. Not a big variety of supplies over here. What pound leader do you use and how stiff is it?