Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

How small is your rod and how light is your line? It's not about the size of your tackle, but how you work it. Come share your Ultralight and Bait Finesse System (BFS) fishing success here!
slimjim1135
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Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by slimjim1135 » Wed Jun 17, 2020 6:00 pm

Hi Y'all!

Looking for a bass BFS rod to pair with my Aldebaran BFS XG, ideally one that can throw a full range of 1-7g lures. I see the Major Craft Benkei and Speedstyle have models for the range, could anybody say how they perform at the top and bottom of their lure ratings?

In the summers I primarily fly fish for Guadalupe Bass, and I'm frankly a little tired of ducking and chucking beefy craw patterns. I'm looking for something to throw my light bass flies/flures (typically in the 1-3g range) while also being able to handle 1/4oz spinners and neko/ned rigs I normally use when throwing conventional gear.

I ordered an Avail microspool to hopefully help with the flures at the lighter end already as well.

Also, any alternative rods I should take a look at?

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by SAGISI CUST0MS » Wed Jun 17, 2020 7:50 pm

Can’t go wrong with either of those rods. If you can afford it I would get the ms-x or ms-x limited line. casting 1 gram can be done with the ultralights with some practice. The avail spool will help you greatly. The Finetail rods will load 1 gram much better but the taper is moderate/whippy trout rod. Also take a look at some ultralight or light solid tip rods. I have a Justace Custom Finesse Flip w/ solid tip and spiral wrapped. It casts light lures extremely well while keeping that bass taper. When a fish is on it bends like a candy cane. Such a fun rod. If your local
to San Jose, ca you can check out any of my bfs rods. I have 13 high end combos.

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by slimjim1135 » Wed Jun 17, 2020 9:39 pm

SAGISI CUST0MS wrote:
Wed Jun 17, 2020 7:50 pm
Can’t go wrong with either of those rods. If you can afford it I would get the ms-x or ms-x limited line. casting 1 gram can be done with the ultralights with some practice. The avail spool will help you greatly. The Finetail rods will load 1 gram much better but the taper is moderate/whippy trout rod. Also take a look at some ultralight or light solid tip rods. I have a Justace Custom Finesse Flip w/ solid tip and spiral wrapped. It casts light lures extremely well while keeping that bass taper. When a fish is on it bends like a candy cane. Such a fun rod. If your local
to San Jose, ca you can check out any of my bfs rods. I have 13 high end combos.
Thanks! Would the MS-X or Justace be more durable as well? I know there's typically a balance between sensitivity/weight and durability, and I'm more than happy to sacrifice a bit of sensitivity for a rod I can really set a hook on and not worry about snapping. I don't think I'm too hard on gear, but I've definitely found out the extent of "Lifetime Warranty" from a few companies.

Pardon my ignorance, but I'm pretty new to BFS terminology, what do you mean by solid tip rods? Is it a type of rod or a feature?

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by Knotty » Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:41 pm

The Major Craft Days DYC-652UL/BF is a BFS specific bass rod, rated 1-7 g. It is unlike any of my other rods that cover similar lure weights. My area, ajing and SUL rods all load much better at 1 g but feel overloaded with 5-6 g Ned rigs. The Days is very stiff for its rating and throws Neds very well but I don't understand how Major Craft rates the rod down to 1 g. You'd have a hard time detecting any rod load at that weight. In my opinion this is a 3-10 g rod, with good backbone, making it pretty ideal for BFS bass. If you don't care too much about casting accuracy, look at ajing rods which go from .6 to 7, or as much as 10 g. They have super thin solid tips but stout butt sections. I don't think a magic rod exists that throws trout magnets and quarter ounce lures equally well, despite all my searching.

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by LowRange » Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:30 am

Knotty wrote:
Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:41 pm
The Major Craft Days DYC-652UL/BF is a BFS specific bass rod, rated 1-7 g. It is unlike any of my other rods that cover similar lure weights. My area, ajing and SUL rods all load much better at 1 g but feel overloaded with 5-6 g Ned rigs. The Days is very stiff for its rating and throws Neds very well but I don't understand how Major Craft rates the rod down to 1 g. You'd have a hard time detecting any rod load at that weight. In my opinion this is a 3-10 g rod, with good backbone, making it pretty ideal for BFS bass. If you don't care too much about casting accuracy, look at ajing rods which go from .6 to 7, or as much as 10 g. They have super thin solid tips but stout butt sections. I don't think a magic rod exists that throws trout magnets and quarter ounce lures equally well, despite all my searching.
Majorcraft BFS rod low ratings are optimistic at best. Maybe pitching a bait but certainly not casting.

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by LowRange » Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:43 am

Knotty wrote:
Wed Jun 17, 2020 11:41 pm
The Major Craft Days DYC-652UL/BF is a BFS specific bass rod, rated 1-7 g. It is unlike any of my other rods that cover similar lure weights. My area, ajing and SUL rods all load much better at 1 g but feel overloaded with 5-6 g Ned rigs. The Days is very stiff for its rating and throws Neds very well but I don't understand how Major Craft rates the rod down to 1 g. You'd have a hard time detecting any rod load at that weight. In my opinion this is a 3-10 g rod, with good backbone, making it pretty ideal for BFS bass. If you don't care too much about casting accuracy, look at ajing rods which go from .6 to 7, or as much as 10 g. They have super thin solid tips but stout butt sections. I don't think a magic rod exists that throws trout magnets and quarter ounce lures equally well, despite all my searching.
That power and taper is pretty common for BFS rods across different makes. That is why they are BFS rods and have BFS or BF written right on them. Trout area and stream rods are not BFS rods. As you see they have completely different tapers and powers. Don't buy a BFS rod and expect a soft noodle trout rod. Totally different animals. Unless it has BFS or BF on it then assume that it is not a BFS rod. I went from L BFS to a trout rod with my L Teton and was really confused as to why it was such as noodle.

I only own my 65UL Volkey BFS because someone bought it thinking it was going to be a good trout and panfish casting rod and was perplexed by how stiff it was and sold it to me. This is why we need to stop assigning BFS to rods that are not actually BFS rods. Not that I don't want a steady supply of mint condition used only in back yard tests BFS rods from Japan.

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by Knotty » Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:49 am

Lowrange, it was our conversation in another thread that motivated me to buy the Days. It does what I wanted it to do, so I’m happy with it. Just don’t understand Major Craft’s decision to rate it down to 1 g. That’s just inviting trouble.

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by LowRange » Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:52 am

Knotty wrote:
Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:49 am
Lowrange, it was our conversation in another thread that motivated me to buy the Days. It does what I wanted it to do, so I’m happy with it. Just don’t understand Major Craft’s decision to rate it down to 1 g. That’s just inviting trouble.
That makes two of us. My Volkeys are the same way

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by LowRange » Thu Jun 18, 2020 8:05 am

The only rod that would come close to throwing 1 gram and 7 would be the Jackson Super Trickster STC-63UL. Even then 1 gram would be difficult and inaccurate. The lightest I go is 1/16 Snap beans. 1/4 oz or 7 grams is the max rating of the rod. To save the solid tip I use other rods for 1/4 oz. Honestly OP needs multiple rods. A Majorcrat L powered BFS stick and maybe an Ajing rod too.

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by slimjim1135 » Fri Jun 19, 2020 9:16 am

Alright so it seems I'll probably need two rods, one for my heavy flies and another for the 2+gram lures in my tackle box.
I went through my light tackle yesterday and weighed everything, and I think I'll start with the heavier of the two first, as I won't be doing any trout fishing till December at the earliest.

My lure load out has a few right at 2g, but a majority are in the 3-6g range. For this, I'm leaning towards a Major Craft Speedstyle, but there's not much difference in price between it and the MSX, and both are available in UL and L from Major Craft America. It looks like both are rated up to 1/4 oz. I'm leaning towards the UL because they seem to have about 2g at the low end, and can go a bit above the lure rating if necessary. Is the difference between MSX and Speedstyle worth it?

As for the second rod, my big bass flies weigh in from about .7g-2g with about 1.3g being average. I have quite a few more flies than conventional lures, so I think I'll be wrapping some tungsten and wire to a few to experiment, as well as adding split shot right above a few when casting. Maybe throwing tandems will add some weight as well. I think I'll wait on this one for a bit till I get more acclimated with BFS and go from there.

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by LowRange » Fri Jun 19, 2020 10:24 am

I have both UL and L BFS tapers in Majorcraft Volkeys. There is not a lot of difference between the two but I use the L stick a lot more for some reason. I throw mostly 1/20 and 1/10 Ned rigs and 1/16 and 1/8 jigs on it. I throw around 1/8-3/16 weight a lot so I prefer the L powered stick. The UL casts 1/16 jigs and plastics better but feels out of gas when fighting a fish by the boat and cant pull fish away from cover as well as the L. Both are very very similar though and the differences are subtle.

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by poisonokie » Wed Jun 09, 2021 11:24 am

LowRange wrote:
Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:52 am
Knotty wrote:
Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:49 am
Lowrange, it was our conversation in another thread that motivated me to buy the Days. It does what I wanted it to do, so I’m happy with it. Just don’t understand Major Craft’s decision to rate it down to 1 g. That’s just inviting trouble.
That makes two of us. My Volkeys are the same way
I know this is old, but the MS-X's are not that way provided your reel is up to snuff. The Volkey's certainly are, though.b the L Volkey is more like a softer, slower version of the M/bfs MS-X. I assume the MS-X Ltd are even better since they have lighter guides.
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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by ss30378 » Wed Jun 09, 2021 2:49 pm

The MS-X limited has been discontinued for a while and are difficult to source sadly. The ms-x will be going bye bye as well this year and a lot of the models are already out of stock. The speedstyle was also discontinued and clearanced out so the days is the highest end bass rod in production at the moment. They have told me a new high end model will be released next year however. I like the days line, they are very light and well balanced, even the 7' heavy model is only 4.0oz and balances at the lock nut with a 6.9oz reel.

Back on topic, for bfs I have the UL days bfs rod and the solid tip light powered speedstyle. I like both but am really becoming a fan of solid tipped rods for light lures. The speedstyle rod has a softer tip than the days but more backbone when setting the hook. It does better with 1g than the days but has more power on a hookset as well. I've been using 3" senkos with 6lb mono with the speedstyle and have been enjoying the heck out of it lately. I think the UL days taper does a little better with small cranks and other treble hook baits however as it loads deeper into the blank.

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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by poisonokie » Wed Jun 09, 2021 5:57 pm

ss30378 wrote:
Wed Jun 09, 2021 2:49 pm
The ms-x will be going bye bye as well this year and a lot of the models are already out of stock.
Good thing I already have them all. Well, except for the 76BB. I honestly thought they were discontinued years ago as some of them were becoming hard to source a couple of years back. I got all of mine from Shimreels and JDM Tackle Heaven before (at least I think) they were made available to the USDM.

I'd be very interested in seeing what they come up with next. I just ordered a Finetail B452L yesterday so that will have to tide me over. I haven't heard anything about that specific model, but it should be perfect for the wading I plan to do this year for trout, sunfish, gills, crappie, largies, and spots in streams this summer. No Guadalupes, though, unfortunately.
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Re: Major Craft Rod for Guadalupe Bass Recommendations

Post by ss30378 » Wed Jun 09, 2021 7:52 pm

I haven’t tried MC trout casting rods yet. I have a 6’1” custom rod built off a phenix mirage blank. Super soft, treble hooks only for that one. The bass bfs gear seems to be just about the right taper and power to use a combination of small presentations on a single combo.

I picked up a 5’ MC aji-do spinning rod built off their new 5g t1100g carbon blanks and if they use that in the new bass line I’ll have a bunch of them.

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