Are any builders here familiar with both of these blanks and can provide feedback on one vs the other?  Considering having a BFS rod built on one of these blanks.  I've heard the SCV blank being called "almost magical" and "near perfect", as well as many other great descriptions.  I've got one rod built on a C6O2 blank and really like it, so I'm interested in that possibility as well.

 

Any feedback at all would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

I have a pre-Trigon Mojo Bass 7'6" MLXF hair jig spinning rod that I absolutely love as a medium light rod. I believe it is an SCIII blank IIRC. It casts a 5" Senko perfectly, but not quite as adept with a 4" Senko, so that's where I would draw the line.

 

If that power and taper is similar for the blank you're looking at, I would not describe it as true BFS, but more like . . . . "BFS-adjacent" or good ol 'finesse'. Like good for 4-8 lbs test line, but I've had my feelings hurt too many times with 4 lbs line, so 6 is about as low as I go for bass where I fish. I have no idea how it would behave as a casting rod.

 

I have a 7'4" Phenix Classic BFS rod that I feel is two full steps down in the power department. A true BFS rod, whereas a light action rod would straddle the line rather than be adjacent like a ML power rod would be. I do like the 7'4" length of the Phenix BFS Classic rod I have. JMHO, and subject to interpretation.

5 hours ago, Big Hands said:

I have a pre-Trigon Mojo Bass 7'6" MLXF hair jig spinning rod that I absolutely love as a medium light rod. I believe it is an SCIII blank IIRC. It casts a 5" Senko perfectly, but not quite as adept with a 4" Senko, so that's where I would draw the line.

 

If that power and taper is similar for the blank you're looking at, I would not describe it as true BFS, but more like . . . . "BFS-adjacent" or good ol 'finesse'. Like good for 4-8 lbs test line, but I've had my feelings hurt too many times with 4 lbs line, so 6 is about as low as I go for bass where I fish. I have no idea how it would behave as a casting rod.

 

I have a 7'4" Phenix Classic BFS rod that I feel is two full steps down in the power department. A true BFS rod, whereas a light action rod would straddle the line rather than be adjacent like a ML power rod would be. I do like the 7'4" length of the Phenix BFS Classic rod I have. JMHO, and subject to interpretation.

Thanks for the feedback!  I've heard great things about the Phenix rods, and may have to check that out!

My 5S76MLXF blanked rod I built is 15 years old or so, I have no idea if the pattern has been modified since then, that said my rod has an extremely light tip, ultralight like but because of the modulus it is not a bit whippy, once you get back a bit it changes to a firm lockup, more than I originally expected the blank would accomplish and the butt is on the upper end of what I expected as ML in that power range, of course it is a spinning rod back then. Tackle Tour did an evaluation of the factory rod in the past. Big Hand's evaluation is nothing like my SCV build, and I bet the Tackle Tour review, it will easily throw anything the reel will off the tip.

In short it has a softer tip than the finesse and dropshot rods of that time period that I built and used in the same power range, and the butt is stouter.

I built a Sc5 7-6mlxf spinning rod (what you can get from rodgeeks) and of a more recent vintage than Spoonplugger1’s.  I would say it has a much lighter tip than I would use for 5” senkos.  It transitions quickly to backbone.  The flex is very much in the tip.  I can see why Big Hands can fish senkos with it, but not really the intended purpose of that blank.  The NFC DS 76 mlxf carbon air, I have the blank but not built it.  I would say that it transitions more gradually into the backbone/ lock up point of the blank.  For BFS, I think it would be smoother for casting.  The SCV 76mlxf has the most abrupt cut off to the light tip of any MLXF I have handled.  

I’m looking into this here I’ll message you direct. 

I like all the st C 7'6" MLXF rods ice tried. From avid to the legends

I'm just getting into BFS, so am no expert (yet).  But from what I've read and experienced so far, XF is not the right action for BFS.  You want an action more like mod-fast and you want less power than what most ML blanks have.   The casting motion has to be sort of "progressive," not abrupt, and the flexing over a longer length of rod promotes this.  Power described as ultra light is more likely right for loading during the cast with the light lures of BFS.  

 

But this whole discussion would be much more accurate if CCS numbers were used to describe power and action.  My nicest casting BFS build  so far is about 8 ERN and 69 degrees AA, 6 foot length.    Another builder who  has built for BFS reports best results  with similar CCS numbers.  I originally thought that longer would be better, but the 6 foot length really does quite well and is very light and convenient to use and casts about the same distance as a 7 foot 3 inch other rod I built.  The 7-3 has an ERN of about 12 and AA of about 67 and is a little too powerful for loading right with the lighter lures.  I haven't yet caught fish, so don't know how a CCS 8 power rod will handle a decent size bass.

Like MickD, I don't think attaching a BFS reel to a stout rod makes a BFS outfit. I built my first one on a NFC P700-1 X Ray, I than built one on a APFG710-1 Linear S-Glass blank. I am also no expert but if you watched any of the Japanese BFS vids you can see what Mick is talking about. A lot of the rods are glass also. Back in the 80's the tackle manufacturers tried out UL bass fishing, and for a while it took off, Quantum built the solid carbon tipped Microlite system of spinning rods that used the smallest wire SF fly guides in the tip, and a bunch us tried casting rods while throwing the 1/8 oz. spinnerbait, crankbait, etc. offering that Bass Pro, Bagley, Strike king, etc. were making. The rods worked, the reels not so much. We machined the bejeezus out of them to lighten them, Shimano came out with the beautiful Bantam 100EX UL casting reel that was better than nothing, and we had a ball fishing behind others and catching bass. Going out with a box of extra reels was fairly common as the massively machined reels would blow up from time to time till we found the right mix, my Kast King Kestrel BFS reel is worlds away from what we tried to build in a reel. The blanks we had a lot of success with were the 1 and 2 power SJ blanks of the time, I used G Loomis blanks, other used their favorites. 4-8 and 6-12 line ratings line ratings with a max lure weight of no more than 3/8 oz. worked back then. I steered more to the 4-8, 4-10 rods. We had to go in and get a bunch of fish this way or held on till they freed themselves. A homemade push pole worked well here.

BFS is yet another subjective and vague term anglers use.  In the current vernacular there are  a range of blanks that will work in given scenarios.  

Prior to st croix discontinuing direct blank sales (yes I know rodgeeks sells them now), there were 2 versions of the 76mlxf blank.  One used a size 3 tip (legend elite style)and the other a 3.5 (legend extreme).  I have the size 3 tip blank and I find it perfect for light hair jigs and very light lures like 1/16 and 3/32 neds and the upper end of the lure ratings I would say is a 2-3/4" tube with a 3/16 oz jighead (probably 3/8 oz to 1/2 oz total weight).  Because of the light tip, I would classify it somewhere between L and ML power.

 

The 3.5 tip blank is basically what they make the current legend extreme and the current rodgeeks blank out of and the tip isn't quite as light and can handle the same as above and maybe up to a 1/4 oz 3.5" tube so there is a little more power out of that blank.  I would classify this blank as a true ml power.  

 

I also built a 7'6" ml-f from a rainshadow revelation blank and would classify their power rating a medium instead of a ml.  I really like this for 3/16 and 1/4 oz 2-3/4 tubes and that is about all I throw on that rod.