Greg

You need to stop swinging those 7 pounders into the boat.

4W

I cast my C-rig side arm. That is the way I learned to do it and it works best for me and my wife. That is how I have taught C-rig casting to others. Also, I let my C-rig stay in the water for a while as I fish it slow. This cuts down on the number of casts made during a fishing trip. My wife fishes the C-rig most of time also and she makes less casts than I do. It is a slow way of fishing--at least for us. At one time I was primarily a crank-bait fisherman and would come home with aching shoulders and developed "tennis elbow" at one point. Discovering the C-rig was a blessing for me. I also had surgery on my left shoulder a few years ago (torn muscle with bone spurs) and have never regained my total range-of-motion. Start casting side arm and keep it the water a little longer. See if that helps.

Hey when your 75 yrs old, even getting in and out of the boat theres pain. Especially when you already had one knee replacement done. Believe me it doesn't get any better. Getting old is Hell, but that's the way it was designed, by the man upstairs.

You will have to figure out what is wrong with your shoulder and have that fixed. One thing that helps for casting is to use two hands on the rod and make the cast using wrist action instead of using your whole arm and shoulders. Use the hand that you are holding the reel with to do the pivoting and the other hand on the butt end of the rod. Just make a pivot cast with your wrist and hands. That way you cut down on arm and shoulder movement.

I had shoulder surgery in each of my shoulder's, rotator in one and forget what I had in the other, both are a lot better now plus I have an excuse for why I can't skip under docks anymore, lol

I would recommend that you get it checked. I was having an issue which was originally diagnosed as a rotator cuff tear. I did PT for 9 months without improvement. It was very frustrating. After an MRI, it was determined I had two rotator cuff tears from two different bone spurs. The bone spurs were from osteoarthritis in my shoulder. To add insult to injury I also have cyst formed from my body trying to gather up all the loose material.

Doctors won't touch the bone spurs because of the osteoarthritis. They want me to turn 60 before they will give it a try unless I'm just in agony. I'm told 75+% of the time if they remove the bone spurs the osteoarthritis will flare and destroy the joint requiring shoulder replacement which they don't want to do until I'm at least 60.

I tell you all this because it can be serious and if you don't have a crappy condition like osteoarthritis it is likely you can get some really good relief rather quickly. Heck people had should replacement and healed faster than I did trying to just heal a "rotator cuff tear". I'm not a fan of the steroid shots. They just tend to mask the issue and not solve anything unless you are just dealing with some inflammation.

I have my yearly physical next week and will get it checked. Shoulder is a bit better last few days even though I've fished. I've just tried to cast easy and not stress the joint.

Good call. Best to know what you are dealing with and get a plan for a solution. 'Band aid' treatments are just prolonging more pain and dysfunction downline.

Word to the wise - surgery only as a last resort.

I had shoulder surgery back in 2012 & then had further issues after getting out of the army. i keep the shoulder pain down by icing my shoulder after long days of fishing and stretching on a daily basis. If i start aching on the water i take an ibuprofen if i need to, always keep a bottle in the first aid kit on the boat.