Are BFS Reels/Rods...

[TheWitness33]

Decent sized for trout? Panfish? I always said if a small baitcaster ever came out i'd drop my spinning reels. I can cast light lures with my BC's i have now but they are in now way effecient. I currently have a 1000 size reel i use for anything other than senko/baits that need back bone for bass/panfish/trout and my daiwa zillion and shimano chronarch are my main bass setups.

[bulldog1935]

Catch up with @redmeansdistortion - that's pretty much all he fishes, round BFS reels matched with stream and larger river baitfinesse rods.  

Stream trout fishing is where BFS originated, going back to 1985.  Mr. Motoyama coined BFS (=Bait Finesse System reel) in his 2000 book on trout fishing - his books in the following decade were about BFS for (shore) bass fishing.  

I have these combos for endemic river bass (Texas brook trout) in our hill country limestone creeks, which also double up for tailwater rainbows.  

telescoping 5'5" UL

This round reel is on a 1-pc 5'4" 1-power

A stream/creek lure box

 

and a wading bag

 

All my 34-mm Daiwas are BFS-mod, though I aim them at salt finesse, 

shore

and kayak

 

Every finesse rod I've owned since 2010 is a progressive or super-progressive taper, very different from traditional UL para taper.  From stream trout to shore/surf microjigging, these rods have powerful butt, long fast mid, and a soft tip for casting their light end.  

[Bigbox99]

Yep they make special steam rods just for trout or panfish.  They will be different from the same power rating bass rods and be much softer.  

[redmeansdistortion]

11 minutes ago, Bigbox99 said:

Yep they make special steam rods just for trout or panfish.  They will be different from the same power rating bass rods and be much softer.  

Trout rods aren't necessarily soft.  Yeah the AliExpress rods are, but many JDM trout rods are not.  Trout rods are designed to keep the fish pinned as they fight much different from bass.  Having a tip that follows the fish better ensures they are brought to the net.  Most of the stiffer trout rods are designed for fishing fast water as a softer rod won't be able to cope with the current.  My Palms Rera Kamuy 6'9" ML and my Major Craft Finetail 5' L are very rigid, yet progressive blanks.  I find the longer ML and M trout rods to be better than many bass rods for bass fishing.  The only exceptions to those is when fishing slop or big swimbaits, then the broomsticks work best.  

[Robin]

Another Texas Hill Country enthusiast (Llano River). Once I converted to BFS from spinning and regular bait casting, life has never been the same. I trend toward the BFS rods more suited for bass which generally are light action that can handle lures from 2-6 grams rather than "trout" rods which are usually UL, or a bit lighter, and very slow action. I find that my casting distance and accuracy are much improved versus spinning gear set-ups. There are a tremendous number of rods available nowadays that work fine at all sorts of price points. Manufactures have recognized the growing market recently and are providing very good products to match our needs. Reel selection has also vastly improved over the past two years.

[Bigbox99]

1 hour ago, redmeansdistortion said:

Trout rods aren't necessarily soft.  Yeah the AliExpress rods are, but many JDM trout rods are not.  Trout rods are designed to keep the fish pinned as they fight much different from bass.  Having a tip that follows the fish better ensures they are brought to the net.  Most of the stiffer trout rods are designed for fishing fast water as a softer rod won't be able to cope with the current.  My Palms Rera Kamuy 6'9" ML and my Major Craft Finetail 5' L are very rigid, yet progressive blanks.  I find the longer ML and M trout rods to be better than many bass rods for bass fishing.  The only exceptions to those is when fishing slop or big swimbaits, then the broomsticks work best.  

They are very different from bass rods though.  If you compare a Benkei UL BF to a Finetail L which is a full power heavier the "UL" Benkei BF rod will have vastly more power since one is a BFS rod from a bass line and the other is a trout rod.  Any BF or BFS rod from Majorcraft is going to struggle to cast something like a trout magnet but their dedicated trout casting rods will do it with ease.  If you ever compare a bass BFS to a trout rod side by side the difference in black diameter is immidiately noticeable.  It's not just a Majorcraft thing either.  The same holds true when comparing Shimano BFS rods from their Expride and Zodias lines to their dedicated trout rods. 

[redmeansdistortion]

12 minutes ago, Robin said:

"trout" rods which are usually UL, or a bit lighter, and very slow action.

Mountain stream trout rods tend to be UL or L, those are intended for small trout and char like yamame and iwana, similar in size to our brook trout and rainbow trout smolts.  Nobody I know of makes a mountain stream rod with a slow action.  It's the antithesis to fishing fast water, which is common of mountain streams in Japan.  When you step into the main stream rods, those made for cherry salmon, steelhead, and coho, those are typically ML to H power and moderate fast to fast action.  I fish steelhead on two different rods, a 6'5" 3-12g and a 7'4" 5-16g, both rods made by Smith Ltd in Japan.  I use them for lures like the Major Craft Eden 60H, Rapala CD5, CD7, and CD9, Storm Hot n Tot and Wiggle Wart, and Daiwa Silver Creek Minnow 61S.

[bulldog1935]

A 5' progressive taper baitfinesse rod has limited butt power because it's a 5' rod, but not because it's soft, spongy, or para-UL

As baitfinesse rods get longer, their top-end rating goes up.  

[redmeansdistortion]

1 hour ago, Bigbox99 said:

They are very different from bass rods though.  If you compare a Benkei UL BF to a Finetail L which is a full power heavier the "UL" Benkei BF rod will have vastly more power since one is a BFS rod from a bass line and the other is a trout rod.  Any BF or BFS rod from Majorcraft is going to struggle to cast something like a trout magnet but their dedicated trout casting rods will do it with ease.  If you ever compare a bass BFS to a trout rod side by side the difference in black diameter is immidiately noticeable.  It's not just a Majorcraft thing either.  The same holds true when comparing Shimano BFS rods from their Expride and Zodias lines to their dedicated trout rods. 

I understand what you're saying, but you're comparing a mountain stream rod to a bass rod.  Stepping up to a mainstream rod, those have the backbone required to fight steelhead, cherry salmon, and coho which are far and away much more formidable fighters than bass.  I got a raging 26" Lake Huron run brown on this combo a couple of weeks back.  It would've been a master angler fish a few years back, but Michigan upped it from 24" to 30" for brown trout.  That's a Smith Troutin'Spin 7'4" 5-16g, got the fish on a ghost UV Hot n Tot.

 

[TheWitness33]

What attracted me to this idea was having to use spinning gear to cast light jigs and such for trout and crappie. Not that i HAVE to but I can't really load a rod i own on something that light and have it go the distance. I can cast weights off and spool tension off but the rod doesn't do the work it needs to.

I fish from shore and sometimes need to get out 20-30 feet. The daiwa i'm looking at says 50ft of 6lb fluoro so i'm not quite sure where that leaves me as id spool with 10-15lb braid, unless i can go lighter? Last time i used light line on a BC it dug in too much.

I normally carry a light spinning rod and a medium-medium heavy casting rod.

[bulldog1935]

I fish down to PE#0.8 (0.15 mm dia - 0.006") with no line dig problems on Big fish.  When you get to these threadlines, talking diameter or Japan silk thread diameter scale makes more sense than talking USM-pound-test, which is all over the place, and really has no meaning.  

Note, this is on Steez SV TW and also Zillion SV TW matched with aftermarket BFS spools and bearings.  

Can go even smaller (PE#0.4) on Silver Wolf, which has increased LW pitch to lay line wider on the spool.  

Depending on my target niche, I also have Ray's SV spools that fish PE#1 and #1.2.  

Jun Sonada recommends PE#1 (equivalent dia = 4-lb mono) as the smallest braid to use on baitcaster w/o increased LW pitch, but I've had no problems fishing PE#0.8 on SV TW and aftermarket shallow braid spool.  

  

[redmeansdistortion]

4 hours ago, TheWitness33 said:

What attracted me to this idea was having to use spinning gear to cast light jigs and such for trout and crappie. Not that i HAVE to but I can't really load a rod i own on something that light and have it go the distance. I can cast weights off and spool tension off but the rod doesn't do the work it needs to.

I fish from shore and sometimes need to get out 20-30 feet. The daiwa i'm looking at says 50ft of 6lb fluoro so i'm not quite sure where that leaves me as id spool with 10-15lb braid, unless i can go lighter? Last time i used light line on a BC it dug in too much.

I normally carry a light spinning rod and a medium-medium heavy casting rod.

Factory built BFS reels usually have a level wind with a wider pitch, this means the line guide moves faster so the line lays in a manner that doesn't enable it to dig in as easy.  Like @bulldog1935, my everyday line is #0.8 (0.148mm diameter) which covers bass, trout, panfish, steelhead, coho, and Atlantic salmon.  Sometimes I'll run #1.0 or #1.2 if the situation calls for it, but it isn't too often I go that big.

[bulldog1935]

On 3/28/2024 at 9:12 AM, TheWitness33 said:

What attracted me to this idea was having to use spinning gear to cast light jigs and such for trout and crappie. Not that i HAVE to but I can't really load a rod i own on something that light and have it go the distance. I can cast weights off and spool tension off but the rod doesn't do the work it needs to.

I fish from shore and sometimes need to get out 20-30 feet. The daiwa i'm looking at says 50ft of 6lb fluoro so i'm not quite sure where that leaves me as id spool with 10-15lb braid, unless i can go lighter? Last time i used light line on a BC it dug in too much.

I normally carry a light spinning rod and a medium-medium heavy casting rod.

You're going to be able to cast lighter by going to lighter line than 6-lb fluoro, try 4-lb or even 3-lb fluoro.  

When I began fishing salt finesse (spinning) 14 years ago, the best mainline available was 4-lb Kamikaze copolymer from Oz, fished on a 500 micron-frame reel.  This light line landed 22" and 23" seatrout, and even a double on tandem with a seatrout and 24" snook (the tandem leader was 15-lb).  

 

The game changed w/ finesse braid, 10-lb mainline (PE#0.5), and 8-lb fluoro leader, running 1-lb drag set to match the rod.  

But if you're worried about threadline braid and backlash, you should be looking at lighter fluoro mainline.  

If you want to look over some rods, here are two categories at BaitFinesseEmpire (west coast importer/vendor).  

Trout

https://baitfinesseempire.com/product-category/rods/trout-rods/

and Panfish

https://baitfinesseempire.com/product-category/rods/panfish-rods/

If you get serious about this, might want to look at offerings from Smith, Ltd.  

https://www.smith.jp/html/03-trouttacle.html (Chrome/settings/language will let you read this in English)

[Further North]

It's off topic...but the best way to cast truly light/small things is with a fly rod.

It's one of the reasons I learned to do it years ago.

[bulldog1935]

I went to salt finesse because blind-fishing a fly rod is obstinate,  unless you're working moving water or on a phenomenon that concentrates bait and gamefish.  

e.g., my best fly rod blind fishing was 50 white bass on consecutive casts (seemed like a good place to stop), and another day with 40 small flounder on consecutive casts (could have caught more, but it was a cold December day, and a 15-mi boat ride home) - it was all about right place and right time (ok, good technique).  

This tackle can even make fly-rod sight-fishing obsolete, and will cast a 2-g jighead or micro-plug past 130'  

[redmeansdistortion]

1 hour ago, Further North said:

It's off topic...but the best way to cast truly light/small things is with a fly rod.

It's one of the reasons I learned to do it years ago.

Some guys out there are casting streamers, euro nymphs, and deer hair mice on BFS.  Personally, most of what I'm fishing is substantially larger by comparison, but the super light stuff can be done.  It still isn't as effective as using a fly rod, but most of those guys throwing that light are fishing small creeks where distance isn't of concern.

[Further North]

46 minutes ago, redmeansdistortion said:

Some guys out there are casting streamers, euro nymphs, and deer hair mice on BFS.  Personally, most of what I'm fishing is substantially larger by comparison, but the super light stuff can be done.  It still isn't as effective as using a fly rod, but most of those guys throwing that light are fishing small creeks where distance isn't of concern.

This one is just shy of a foot long,I have some that get to around 15".

 

 

...obviously not small stream flies. 

 

The bottom one here is about 5 1/2".

 

 

...and they'd be almost impossible to cast more than a rod length on BFS gear (I've tried)  because there's almost nothing to them.

 

Here's one with the light behind it...

 

 

We start running into issues with being able to handle any fish big enough to eat them, even if we. Ours cast them with conventional tackle.

 

...but I'm off on a tangent...ignore me...😉

[bulldog1935]

So far, we have on topic facts, and off topic bad recommendations.  

 

And what do I know.  

 

 

 

take up fly fishing, slap the water, 10 years from now, maybe you can do this

[Further North]

10 minutes ago, bulldog1935 said:

So far, we have on topic facts, and off topic bad recommendations.  

I Must have missed the latter. 😉