Who Makes The Best BFS Rod? | Polish Pete

Video Transcript

Alright everybody, here comes another series of rods that are all under the same sort of category of BFS. That's right, baitcaster finesse systems. We've been asked a ton about this one. We do have some rods that sell pretty well in that category. We haven't seen it take off the way that a lot of people thought it would, where it would sort of replace the spinning rod in a lot of applications. The tournament anglers haven't seemed to find that to be the case just yet, although I did just last week, talk to some high level tournament anglers that are trying to squeeze it in and see where they can make it fit. But we're gonna go through a bunch of different rods you sell here at Omnia Fishing in the BFS world. Definitely hoping to hear your feedback like the last time when we did chatter bait rods. We're not done with those by the way. There's a lot more chatter bait rods to come, but we're gonna start off with about five or six of these BFS rods. There'll be multiple segments of this 'cause there's gonna be a lot more, but we'd like to hear your feedback and ones we might be missing. We're just interested in what actually works and what makes the most sense. I've seen different schools of thoughts already on this with the BFS world. I've seen really moderate action rods. I've seen ultra light power of casting rods that are just seem to have no action to them whatsoever. And I've seen everything to this extreme action right here that we got on this guy. Can't wait to bend this one on the wall and see how crazy the action actually is. But we're gonna start out bougie like we did the last time we did chatter bait rods. This is the top of the line BFS rod we carry here as far as price goes, I would say. This is the Steeze AGS Finesse game special. This rod's actually coming in at six foot, eight inches, and it is a light power fast action. It feels definitely like this rod. With just some line on it, bending it on the floor and all that, like it's got a stinger tip, like a solid tip. The tip's insanely fast. It's crazy like little quick tip action to this thing. So it's much, much faster than a lot of the other rods that I played with, but that's why we're bending them on the wall. We're gonna see what the actions are, how they compare against each other. But if you're looking where price point don't matter, this one's gonna be the king of that one. This thing's insanely lightweight too. This one came in at 3.2 ounces when I weighed it. That's insanely lightweight. That's super light. And it feels super light. And it's obviously, this is basically like a little light spin and rod with a casting handle on it, casting guide. So let's go bend this thing on the wall and see how the little Steeze Finesse game special comes out. All right, I'm here with that Steeze AGS Finesse game special. This thing is extremely light. I think I mentioned it before. We're coming in at 3.4 ounces. A lot of that weight savings, not only does it come from this little skinny blank on here, the SBF Nano Plus blanks the Steeze rods use, but it's got those AGS guides, the carbon fiber guide train. It does make these rods feel super alive. I will say this, for as polarizing as the AGS guides have been, anybody who's actually fished with them will tell you flat out. I don't care what rod brand you're a fan of. AGS guides do increase the sensitivity of your rod dramatically, like super dramatically. So this thing would be a killer BFS rod, that's for sure, some super light line. All the rod beds are gonna be doing, we're trying to do with BFS reels, so you can see what it's like. This one here, absolutely a little PX BFS reel. And I've fished with this exact rod and reel for crappies. And it through crappie baits pretty good. So I get it, it's fun. Let's bend it and see how it goes. And just like every other time we bend a rod, it tells a different story than it does when you just put some line on it and bend it. So I would have said to you that this rod would have been an extra, extra fast stinger tip type rod. But when you actually put some pressure on it, apply it with a bait on it, it's kind of exactly what they said, it's a fast action. The tip's not as extreme unless you're just trying to work the bait itself. Then you can see just a little bit of that tip up there, we'll dance around. It is fast action with a kind of a slow load. But it's soft enough power that you're not going to worry about breaking. This line I have on here, I believe it's, it's either five or six pound test. I think it's five pound test. Really light line for a baitcaster anyway. And as you can see, I could confidently bend it because this blank is nice and soft and forgiving. The tip's really, really wild on this one. This would be a fun one for throwing really small hard baits. Just being able to actually get some distance on a little tiny jerk bait or a little tiny top water. So the tip loads up like nothing. So cool rod here from Dio-O, the Steeze family. This is on the high end, like I said. Let's go try out some other BFS rods and see how the other price points are playing and what the actions are like in a lot of these BFS rods. This is an interesting BFS rod here. This one is the Mega-Fast Destroyer P5, Siglet, it's a 6-6 ultralight. Extra fast slash slow action. So you do the math on that one. I'm gonna guess, that's 'cause this tip is probably, if it's not solid, I think it could be solid. It's an extremely, extremely soft, soft tip. But I think because of the ultralight power, the backbone's not 'til way down the blank here. So it kinda loads, if you got a fish on it, it's a moderate action. If you're just working a bait, it's an extra fast. Like the tip's super, super light on this thing. It doesn't feel as extreme a tip as the Steeze felt, but it's lighter power, so the whole rod wants to bend and you can bend this tip super easy 'cause it's an ultralight, right? And it's extra fast. So this thing came in at 2.8 ounces. This might end up being one of the lightest casting rods we ever weigh here. And it feels that way, it's super light. It was this little BFS reel on here, the little PX. BFS reel, this thing feels insanely fun to fish with. I'm not 100% sure, as far as competitive angling, what technique you wanted to play with this. Obviously BFS fishing is something that's new to the US market, is not new at all in the globally. BFS has been around a long time, long time. I'm afraid to admit my age on it. I've been playing with some of the BFS reels a long time ago that were from the Japanese manufacturers. So interesting to see now that we got some rods starting to fill the category out though, how the actions are gonna compare, how each manufacturer kinda sees a BFS rods action and what it should be. So let's go bend this Mega Bass P5 Destroyer Sigglet. All right, I already got corrected on the power here. It is actually a super ultralight, which would make you mad because I've never even heard of that, but it kinda makes sense. So if you got it on the wall up here, it takes literally nothing to get this rod to bend. Like I mean it, like I could just tap my finger on it, I think hard enough and get this thing to fold over. It's a really, really light powered rod. There's probably, you could throw just about anything you wanna throw on this thing. I think your limitation would be, honestly how good your thumb could get and how loose you could get this real running. 'Cause the blank will just bend. I mean it bends beautifully. It's super easily I should say. You don't see that extreme tip action you saw out of the steez. And I think that's 'cause this tip is so insanely light. Like, and I mean light. I get what they're saying now with like the tip is extra fast, but the backbone is moderate and they're not wrong, the action of the rod is, I would put it more in that moderate for get the whole extra fast tip thing. The tip is light enough that you could impart a shaking. I mean, you could shake 'em in with this thing on Ford-facing Sonar too and be just fine. The question is, can you get a hook in 'em? You know, with how soft this rod is without the little teeny BFS hook, that's kind of the nicely with all the BFS baits. You get these little small, light wire hooks that you can get a hook and fish without having to set the hook or really blast 'em with any backbone. So really cool rod. I'm not sure what I would use it for. But I guess I'm not thinking in the sense of a true BFS angler, you know, that's doing a lot of the really cool, small bait stuff for, especially trout fishing with the trout fishing stuff. But for as far as like the tiny little hard baits like Mega Bass has for BFS now, and some of the micro finesse stuff from Z-Man that we throw a lot of here at Omnia, a lot of those guys have got a lot of confidence in a lot of those little baits. You can certainly get away with throwing any of that stuff with this, so cool rod from Mega Bass. The Mega Bass P5 destroyer, Sigglet, it's a 6-6 super ultra light. Go check this one out. Dobbins Sierra BFS. This one's in this fight because we sell the fire out of this rod. That's right, I would bet you that this is probably our most popular BFS rod bang for your buck and just total sales volume, right? Like, unit sales, right? People have found this rod to be one of the best values in that world of BFS, period. This thing's under 200 bucks, and it's got some pretty solid action to it. It doesn't feel like a buggy whip. I kind of date, so far, while the ones I've picked up that aren't even a super, super expensive, you know, out of all of them, even the super expensive ones, this one feels like it's got a more traditional casting rod action to it, instead of almost being like some sort of spinning rod with a casting handle on it. So, I'm interested to go bend this thing. It came in at 3.6 ounces, and with this little teeny BFS reel on it here, it feels really nice. It's light, and it feels like a casting rod that I could set the hook with. So, I'm interested to see how it bends over here with this light line on it. Let's go bend the Dabanciera BFS rod. All right, this rod, this Dabanciera, is a seven foot light power, extra fast action. And I'll tell you, as I want to bend it, I, you know, it's hard to see it on the bend here that it's extra fast, unless you're just moving the tip up there. It definitely feels faster than the other ones. It doesn't, might not look at that way on the wall here, but I'll tell you from resistance, from the actual physical bending of the rod, this thing's a lot faster than the other ones. And as I said, as you were just bending it off the wall, with just the line, it did feel more like a traditional casting rod. So, this rod does have a little bit more action out there towards the tip than the other one. Now, the other ones have wilder tips, but they're lighter powers as well. This one seems a little bit more of a, you know, you could get away with throwing stuff that's maybe a little bit bigger than what would be considered BFS tackle. If I wanted to fish 10, 12 pound tests on this thing, no problem whatsoever, I would think. And you could fish probably a little bit more universal bass fishing lures, so one weighted soft plastics and things like that, than having it just be a BFS rod. It's still too light power for me to be just like a traditional in the rotation kind of tournament rod. And man, for some fun fishing applications, this thing does seem like a lot of fun. I just wanna throw tiny poppers and top waters with this thing so bad. 'Cause it's long enough, I think you can get some serious distance even with those light little lures, and I bet you'd be a blast fight and those fish on this thing. And it's soft enough that you could get away with that lighter line. So check out the Dobbins Sierra BFS series. These things are a screaming deal for the money. Shimano X-Brides entered the BFS fight, and it should come to you as no surprise, already is impressing for the price. This isn't a cheap ride by any means, it's not coming in as a winner for us in the price point category, but it is a lot less expensive. Then the two rods that it came within the same weight category anyway, this thing came in at 3.4 ounces. It's not as light as this D's are the P5 destroyer, but man, that's still pretty dang light, and small feeling for a $300 rod. So much less expensive than the super high end stuff, but it feels really high end. And that's what the X-Brides shine at, and hence I think why we move so many X-Brides here at Omniafishing. This one here is a light power fast action, 6.8. So we're starting to see some commonality between some of the BFS rods. Very interested to see how this one bends over here on our wall, the Shimano X-Bride, 6.8 light fast action BFS rod. All right, Shimano BFS, the X-Bride, this should be no surprise to any of you, this is gonna be one of the more popular BFS rods that we have. I would say out of all the rods, once again, kudos to Shimano again, very accurate, and they're power descriptions. This is a fast, or should say, action descriptions. This feels a lot faster than the other ones. Once again on the rod bend, because they are such light powered rods, they all look moderate 'cause I can load 'em up and just bend 'em right past the tip pretty easily. This one, you're getting a lot more pressure up in the tip, even then the Dab and Sierra, honestly. This one here feels even more universal than that rod. I would like the extra length you get out of that Sierra, and I also like that Sierra's price point. But this thing, once again, Shimano, this X-Bride series, seems to just show like they can play with any high end rod that they want for a lot less money, very impressive stuff from Shimano. These rods feature their mono-cock handles, cork grips, I love the fact that four grips are cork and no threads exposed. They're very comfy rods to mess with nice kite trains on. There's really no complaining about these whatsoever. And then I tell you, for a BFS rod, this thing feels like it's a medium light powered blank with a really fast tip on it that you could do a whole bunch of stuff with. I wouldn't be scared to throw a decent sized jerk bait on this thing if I was in a jam. So if you're looking for a rod that you might not just wanna use for BFS, maybe some other stuff as well, I think this so far out of all of them feels like a rod that you could jump out into some other techniques other than throwing tiny tiny little stuff. Cool rod from Shimano, I'm excited. I actually wanna get this one out and throw it. I have not yet, so I'm gonna do that. So I'll give you a report on it later. Shimano X-Bride 6.8 light power fast action BFS. Last one for this grouping anyway, another volume one because this one comes in at $130 and it's made in the good old US of A. This is the Caschen Element BFS rod, the bait finesse system as they put right on the handle there. This one is a 610 medium light fast action. And it seems like a trend as we go down at price point here, they tend to get a little bit more universal it appears. They're not so drastically BFS. This one was a bit of a surprise, the most like a regular casting rod. I think it would be more universal. Probably get away with some light line, but I could still use it for some other stuff too. So if you're not 1,000% committed to throwing 330 second-sounds hair jigs with a casting rod, this might be the rod for you. So let's go bend the Caschen Element BFS rod. All right, I'm here with that Caschen Element BFS rod. This one coming in at $130 like retail price of this thing. It's really nice for that kind of three point six ounces. So it's lightweight. This thing is a medium light fast action. It's got some backbone to it. It's the first one with a little bit of backbone to it. I would absolutely be very happy throwing regular sized top waters and jerk baits, things of that nature with this rod, no problem whatsoever. But it does have a light enough tip to it. I mean, I got light line on this and I'm not scared of yanking on this at all. As long as you could cast that really small stuff with this rod, this one to me would be the one that I would probably be the most easily transitioned into BFS fishing for bass. I have been crop efficient a lot with the BFS stuff. I've done it the last couple of springs and I think it couldn't be a funner, right? I haven't done it enough with bass fishing to be an expert on it by any means. Just started playing around with it. This is gonna be one that I grab now that I've been messing with it 'cause this one would definitely be a good, comfortable transition from traditional casting equipment to this bait finesse system stuff. So like I said, you're looking at American made rod for 130 bucks that you could throw BFS stuff and I still think this would be a killer, like just traditional pop or rod. It's really nice. So, six, 10, medium light, fast action, cashion element.