BFS Survey

[Delaware Valley Tackle]

Those that are into BFS:

what baits and weights are you throwing for bass and other species? 

[ghost]

For me 1/8oz to 3/8oz lures. Lightest I would cast a lure is a 1/16oz Rapala Countdown Minnow. 

 

I really have no reason to be casting a trout magnet or real small lures.

[Tatulatard]

1/20 oz ned head and 2 inch plastic at the lightest on L or UL rod.  Common weights are 4" stick-o weightless.  1/16 oz flick shake head with 4 or 5 inch stick-o and 4.8 flickin shimmy worms.  10 lb flouro on a stiffer JDM L or ML rod.  I prefer a JDM BFS rod as they are pretty stout. The skinny toothpick trout rods are completely different animals from a bas rod power to power.  I would break down the two into bass or stream rods.  Bass rods are going to have a emphasis on fishing around cover and the stream rods are going to be much softer able to hook and land trout. 

 

Your classic bass BFS as envisioned in Japan is to present 3.5 gram jigs and small trailers, no sinker worm and neko rigs to highly pressured or inactive fish in clear water near cover on 7 to 10 lb hard flouro line.

 

[Robin]

1/10 oz ned rigs, JDM trout minnows (3-5 grams) and small jerkbaits (Megabass Nanahans and Duo Rozante 63SP around 1/4oz). I will go lower, but these seem to produce the best for my fishing. I mainly fish Central Texas (Hill Country) rivers and these sizes are perfect for the native Guadalupe bass. They also work well for stocked rainbow in the winter. I will also break out a small Zoom Fluke Jr. (4") quite often and these can be "killer" on largemouth, smallmouth and Guadalupe bass.

[QUAKEnSHAKE]

1/32 jighead with  2"-2.5"-3" keitechs  2g-3g total weight

 

1/16 jighead ned rigs mostly googan rattlin neds around 6.5 grams total

 

also small inline spinners 

 

set-up  T3 with roroX 5g spool  8#super slick v2 braid Kuying super lite Ajing 7'6" .6g-10g rated rod.

[optimator]

Not a true BFS but a Feather ML with a Curado BFS reel. All I’ve thrown on it so far are 1/16 Ned heads with a TRD. 8lb flouro. 

[FryDog62]

I have two BFS rod/reel combos:

• Phenix Feather Light w/Daiwa Air TW, 7 lb Sniper. Mostly 3/32 Neds or 1/16th oz Hair Jigs
• Phenix Feather ML w/Curado BFS reel, 15 lb braid + leader. 1/8 oz Jig worms and Underspins

For me, I prefer baitcasting over spinning for everything except drop-shotting. 

[Pogues2300]

Just a quick question is the idea behind bfs using bait casters to replace spinning or more to it? 

[MN Fisher]

7 minutes ago, Pogues2300 said:

bfs using bait casters to replace spinning

Pretty much...

[Pogues2300]

No issue with that. I have 6 bait casting combos and one spinning… I need to fight the monkey and not replace my one spinning! lol

[ska4fun]

4 hours ago, Delaware Valley Tackle said:

Those that are into BFS:

what baits and weights are you throwing for bass and other species? 

Peacock basses, Common and Fat Snooks, Giant Piranhas... The usual 2-7g.

[MN Fisher]

3 minutes ago, Pogues2300 said:

I have 6 bait casting combos and one spinning

Just starting I guess - my arsenal is...

Bass: 11 Casting and 5 Spinning

Panfish: 3 Spinning (and two of the bass spinners could shift over as well)

[bulldog1935]

Wading limestone headwater creeks, I fish down to 1.6-g microplugs, and most often fishing 3 - 4 g (1/8 oz).  The 5'5" stream trout rod is rated 1 to 7 g.  Our endemic spotted bass occupy the same fast water in warm that trout do in cold.  

 

From a kayak in wider, deeper spots on our limestone rivers, I'm fishing stouter rods that will keep decent size largemouth from going under the boat.  While these 3 reels are built as BFS for threadline braid, they cover different wide ranges, 6' MH graphite (frogger), and glass 5' MM and 5-1/2' ML.  The ML rod is rated down to 5 g, but it fishes 4 g with aplomb.  From the other thread, I'll add these combos all skip-cast with aplomb, to get under cypress overhang.  

 

There's one no-motors 400-acre, clear, deep, hill country reservoir where I'll take a kayak after the spooky endemic and largemouth bass that live there.  The perimeter is a 5-mi paddle, and I never take more than 1 rod and 2 lure boxes.  

I'll fish plugs and cranks up to the rated 5/8 oz, finesse spinnerbaits, buzzbaits, and 1/15-oz neds.  

 

Saltwater, I'm shore fishing and kayak fishing.  

Shore fishing takes longer rods, 8'2" microplug and 8'9" microjig (think surf) - both are wide-range rods, 2 to 20 g, and 3 to 30 g.  I normally fish the light end of my rods.  

I also have a BFS CT surf reel that goes with the microjig rod, and reaches out 30% farther with higher line speed.  

The microplugs are 2.5 to 3.5 g, have tiny trout trebles swapped for larger plug singles - these hooks foul 4/5 casts on spinning line, but never foul on BFS because of tight-line casts.  The metal microjigs are typically 3 to 7 g.  

 

Kayak rods are shorter, 7'1" ML and 7'3" black sea perch baitfinesse, with more backbone to keep a redfish from going under the boat (think 2-3-mi drifts over 2' grass).  

I'm fishing 1/8-oz jigheads and 1/8-oz plugs, 1/8-oz "bunny" lures for sight fishing, and the baitfinesse rod, rated 1.5 to 20g, will double up on the lighter microplugs wading a tide pass (small bait balls up in tide passes from current and wind effects).  

 

"true BFS" remains misunderstood on BR forum.  BFS is the reel, the combination of a shallow lightweight spool, low-inertia microbearings and threadline.  A good progressive-taper rod that matches your lure target fits the bill.  

ps - if this big girl is around, she may snag and reject your bait before you can close the bail on your spinning reel.  

pss - people continue trying to put BFS into a box (UL spinning) - it's not going to stay there, and you see BFS concepts being applied to most every new bait reel introduced this decade (e.g., Daiwa uses their shielded spool microbearings across the board in their high-end Boost reels).  Any time you want to fish braid, it's an advantage for cast distance (read effort) and reliability.  I built this surf-lure reel to cast 1/4 to 1 oz on 8' 2-hand rod, and even with synchro LW drive, it casts that weight range toe-to-toe with the same size NLW CT reel.  

 

[Pogues2300]

3 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Just starting I guess - my arsenal is...

Bass: 11 Casting and 5 Spinning

Panfish: 3 Spinning (and two of the bass spinners could shift over as well)

I’m not really just starting I fish out of a pedal kayak, somewhat limited. I’ve sold and worked my way up to 7 pretty high end combos vs more combos. What I can afford anyways I’ve seen other peoples arsenals on here lol

[walleyecrazy]

So far this year my two most frequently used BFS baits have been a 3/16oz Keitech mono spin jig with a Mule fishing burrow bug trailer, and a 1/16oz Jenko Big T whirly bird head with a  1 3/4” Zman micro finesse Shad fryz. I also throw baits like the Duo Realis Rozante 63sp jerkbait which is 3/16oz. The majority of my baits fall between the 1/16 to about 1/4oz max 

[FishTank]

These are my favorites so far in hard baits and jigs.....

 

 

From top left down and over...... 

 

 

Megabass x nanahan but get the +1

Megabass Great Hunting 70sp

Lucky Craft Bevy Shad 60sp

Duo Realis Rozante 63sp

Rapala Shad Rap -  the little one

Shimano Tiny Macbeth

Megabass BFS Griffon MRX

Megabass Great Hunting Humpback 51

Megabass Great Hunting Flatside 50

Bassday Mononofu 50s

Megabass Karashi

Megabass Baby Popx

Keitech Mono Spin Jig

 

For soft plastic I like.....

 

Megabass Rock Hog Ned Rigged

Megabass 3in Hazedong Shad on a 1/16oz head

Pretty much any TRD style bait 

Jackall 3in Cover Craw 

OSP Mylar Minnow 

4.5 in Roboworm on a 1/16oz Shakey Head

Various Small Grubs on a crappie jig head

 

 

 

 

[TnRiver46]

14 hours ago, T-Billy said:

Z-Man Ned Bugz on a 1/8 football head with a #2 hook are my #1 hands down. Ice out all the way to ice over. They catch everything. I've been using 6# XT and I've been happy with it, but I have some 4# YZH on the way to try. It's probably equivilent to 6# most other stuff.

Do I even know you ???

[Big Hands]

1/8 oz tungsten worm weight (sinker stop about 3/16" above the weight, with a Z-man Crawz on a 1/0 Owner rigging hook. I use a whittled down flat toothpick to help keep the bait in place on the hook. This has been pure money on my Classic BFS rod with a Curado BFS. 

 

For those that have the Curado BFS, I highly recommend flushing the bearings out and lightly oiling them. 

[Jmurphy87]

1-8 grams was what I used to shoot for when I had a bfs setup, my rod wasn’t the best for below 3 grams but I made it work.

[T-Billy]

8 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Do I even know you ???

Sure you do. I just got a new BFS rod today. Big Flippin Stick that is!!! LOL. Everyone needs a second 7'6" XH F don't they? I have two bfs rods (The Phenix Feather L and ML are fantastic btw), and at least a dozen H, Mag H, XH sticks.

[JediAmoeba]

I throw 1/32 oz hair jigs on bfs or micro finesse jigs that are as heavy as 1/20 oz. 

 

Anything like 4" senkos I can throw on regular gear - I usually throw regular ned heads on my 7' medium rod with a tatula sv reel. No need for bfs.