Blanks for short (6-6'3") Light BFS rod?

[fishwizzard]

Hi,

 

I am looking for some input on a blank for a short BFS rod that I am thinking of having made up.  My current set up is a PX68 w/DYI spool mounted on a PHX-C682.  With the spool and some Air bearings I can make pretty good long and accurate (for me at least) casts with a 4" weightless trick worm.  However, the rod is too long for my tastes and needs so I am looking into getting something shorter.  I also would like a rod that will cast even better with the lighter lures I want to use.  I also own a ML MajorCraft rod that has a lot of overlap with my Recon2 and I think I would like them to have more distinct roles.  The lures I want to throw are, at the low end, inline spinners and crappie cranks in the 1/16th range.  In the middle, weightless finesse worms and 3" senkos, and at the highend, Ned rigs, 1/8oz spinnerbaits and micro jigs.  Below are the blanks I was looking at, with some of my thoughts:

 

1) PHX-C682L-B   Same blank as my current rod.  I would like to shorten it down to around 6' to 6'3", but I don't know what that will do to the action of the rod.  While I do want a lighter rod, I could also see the appeal of my current rod but in a handier length.  This is option depends on how the cutting would affect the blank.

 

2)CS721-MHX   I have a spinning rod built on the next blank up in this series and use it as my finesse spinning rod.  I have been really happy with it and the same builder should be able to get me a good rod built on it for well under $200.  This would be a good budget option.

 

3) St Croix PS56LF  This is the "go short or go home" option.  I have a 6' Premier spinning rod and it does very well with the lure I want to throw on my bfs combo.  This option would but the combo on the panfish/bass divide, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I fish a lot of small rivers and catch a mix of small (6"-12") smallies and large sunfish in them.  Both my current BFS combo and my finesse spinner combo feel a little heavy for them sometimes.  My concern is that it will be too light to get good hooksets on small t-rigged plastics, an issue I had last season. But, in the fall I switched from EWG to straight shank hooks for larger plastics and my hook up ratio shot up.  I believe that switching over for my smaller plastics will provide similar results, but have yet to test it.

 

Any comments/advice are welcome.  I am still very open to other blanks, but wanted to start my search with ones that I have some experience with.

 

thanks

 

[Jeff H]

My BFS custom is built on the St Croix 3S63MLXF.  Works fantastic

[MickD]

With the lure weights you are talking about you need to go longer rather than shorter to get better casting.  Or simply go to what works much better with 1/16 oz and similar lures and use spinning outfits.  You are, in my opinion, making it way too hard on yourself trying to make baitcasting work on such light lures.  Unless I'm missing something. . . 

[rippin-lips]

Majorcraft has a speedstyle model that's 6'4. They offer both UL and LT. 

[fishwizzard]

2 hours ago, MickD said:

  You are, in my opinion, making it way too hard on yourself trying to make baitcasting work on such light lures.  Unless I'm missing something. . . 

 

That is literaly it, there is no realy advantage that I can see over just throwing them on a spining combo, but it sure is fun to mess with!

 

1 hour ago, rippin-lips said:

Majorcraft has a speedstyle model that's 6'4. They offer both UL and LT. 

So they do, at is it only a reasonble price of 19,000 yen!

 

I do really like my Go Emotion ML, but was not aware that they made any rods with an XF tip and had somehow never stumbed across the Speedstyle line.  I am annoyed at the lack of hookkeepers on the pair of MC rods I own.  The fuji ones are too fussy and in any case I fish mostly t-rigged plastics, so I strongly perfer rods with dropshot keepers that allow me to keep the hook point buried in the plastic when it is stowed.  

[rippin-lips]

1 hour ago, Bunnielab said:

 

That is literaly it, there is no realy advantage that I can see over just throwing them on a spining combo, but it sure is fun to mess with!

 

So they do, at is it only a reasonble price of 19,000 yen!

 

I do really like my Go Emotion ML, but was not aware that they made any rods with an XF tip and had somehow never stumbed across the Speedstyle line.  I am annoyed at the lack of hookkeepers on the pair of MC rods I own.  The fuji ones are too fussy and in any case I fish mostly t-rigged plastics, so I strongly perfer rods with dropshot keepers that allow me to keep the hook point buried in the plastic when it is stowed.  

No keeper is standard practice on most jdm rods. They tend to use the hood of the reel as their keeper. Digitaka is a good company to order from if you do pull the trigger on one. 

[fishwizzard]

The Japanese also put mayo on pizza, so all sorts of odd things go on over there. That does explain the wear on a lot of the used reels I have been looking at on ebay. 

 

 I would love to come up with a non-permenment, but sturdy way to add a DS keeper to my rods, but so far I have not though up a good methoud.  

[rippin-lips]

15 minutes ago, Bunnielab said:

I would love to come up with a non-permenment, but sturdy way to add a DS keeper to my rods, but so far I have not though up a good method.  

http://www.reeltimedesigns.com/DropShotWeightKeeperSystem.html

[fishwizzard]

31 minutes ago, rippin-lips said:

http://www.reeltimedesigns.com/DropShotWeightKeeperSystem.html

Damm, I owe you a beer.  I tried etape, hockey tape, and some old self-sealing vinyl tape my dad had and none of it worked.