I have been doing spool bearing cleanings and putting only one or two drops of oil to get them spinning with maximum ease.  On some of my reels, I find that having a very light spool tension, it works better.  Basically the lure will fall basically freely.  The spool will overrun when the lure touches the ground. I'm usually tossing 1/4 oz lures on these reels so there's usually not enough weight at the end of the cast for the spool to overrun..  Other reels, they need a slightly heavier spool tension setting.  The lure has a controlled fall rate.  No spool overrun when lure touches the ground.  I'm usually tossing 3/8 oz to 3/4 oz lures on these reels.  I've also found that I don't require to adjust the spool tension beyond 1/2 oz once that is set.  If I tie on a 3/4 oz lures, it will just work fine for me.

If I'm going for distance, I tend to put more arm and shoulder into the cast.  Mostly to high stick the rod in the cast and the reel is gonna be over my head.  If casting more casually, it's mostly just wrist flicking and the reel will be at about chest level.

I don't know if this will help but I use abu 6500's and 6000's for my cat rods which are from 7ft to 11ft but I take the brakes out of my reels which gives me control how far I want it to go as said before you have to use your thumb to control it or it's bird nest city ! I've always used my thumb with a bait caster it's just the way I was taught as a kid !

I've tried the no brakes night catfishing and that gave me the whirly bird nest of a lifetime. LOL's, my thumb just couldn't help me that time . I don't think I'll ever do that one again. Only afterwards did I learn that I should've up my spool tension knob to help. Hard lesson learned.

Give your thumb a break by using more brake as casting distance increases, but no more brake than necessary. The brake system is there to cancel out some of your misjudged power application. If you could be perfect on every cast concerning rod characteristics, line and bait load characteristics, spool inertia and friction factors, wind vectors, and all the other things that can change quickly, you could turn off all braking and have no problems with bird-nested line.

Jim