What Bait Finesse System Is and When You Should Fish It

Breaking down the whole BFS niche with some history, suggestions and what it can be for your fishing

The trending niches in freshwater fishing over the last several years has certainly included Bait Finesse System fishing or BFS as everyone calls it by its acronym. Simply put, BFS offers anglers a way to fish light lines on baitcasting gear with great precision in casting and presentation.

But much confusion encircles BFS and for what circumstances anglers believe it should be used. I don’t claim to be the expert of BFS, but I’ve tested dozens of rods and reels and hundreds if not thousands of downsized lures intended or otherwise crossing over for fishing on BFS gear.

So I want to provide some insight that I hope will help anglers explore more options with BFS in their own fishing. And explain why it is not a replacement for anything else but rather another tool in the anglers box to present lures better or more efficiently in certain situations to enhance your fishing.

At the end of they day, I believe the focus should be on making fishing less painful and more fun for anglers, and for me, BFS, like many applications that make you more efficient, has done that in many instances.

A BIT OF BACK STORY ON BAIT FINESSE SYSTEM

Some anglers believe the purpose of BFS gear is to throw as light as possible tackle on casting gear. Other anglers think it’s a replacement for spinning gear for guys that prefer baitcasting gear. Truth be told neither spinning gear nor light lures were the driving force behind bait finesse system.

Now I may change some of this article after I interview some of the anglers who were said to be at the forefront of bait finesse system later this year. And much of what I have learned has come from very knowledgable anglers in the space that I believe are at the forefront of introducing new anglers to BFS stateside to include Amir, Jimmy, Cody and Hunter — known online as Bait Finesse Empire, RaWr Fishing, Hobie Wan Kenobi and The Hunter Fisher.

As I understand it, BFS started in the trout space and was adopted to bass fishing to be able to present finesse baits to highly pressured bass in clear water with a little more precision and control in heavy-cover environments. These were line shy fish turning off of bigger baits and thicker lines. So they were exploring ways to present some more finesse baits with accuracy because they needed to snake the bass out of cover on light line.

Anglers were able to pitch and skip light downsized lures at distance to heavily pressured bass because of the shallow spools and low inertia required for casting those light lures with BFS gear with better line control than on a spinning reel. And the crazy precision you can achieve to hit the smallest openings in cover.

Anglers often think, well I can do that with my spinning rod. And to some extent that is true. But the precise short distance casting you can achieve with a BFS setup is still superior to a spinning rod in many close quarter circumstances.

I tend to believe a lot of that is a moot point in the grand scheme of fishing. If catching fish on light lures, making precision casts, having more control of your lures on the retrieve and things like that make your fishing more efficient then that will generally make it more enjoyable. So you will probably fall in love with bait finesse system if you think like that.

It’s not a replacement for conventional gear or spinning gear. It’s simply an add-on option to get more control and efficiency with your light line fishing. It’s also why so many mountain stream anglers in Japan adopted it for wild stream trout in the tightest of quarters and cover scenarios with treble hook lures.

And if you think about the fishing in Japan, where BFS originated, much of their freshwater fishing is in those mountain streams with close quarter casting and lots of obstacles above and around you when casting. So they created a lot of specific rods and casts with those rods to combat the obstacles in their casting arc. You are making a lot of up-down flip casts, side arm rolls and ultra precise under hand pitches, and your lure placement is easier achieved with a shallow-spooled baitcaster and a “whipy”, short casting rod than a spinning rod with treble hook lures.

WHERE BFS IS LIMITED

I would be remiss if I tried to portray BFS as the answer to everything as it is nowhere close to that. I don’t fish BFS gear all the time. But I do choose it quite a bit for certain types of fishing. I fish small creeks quite a bit, and a BFS setup is dynamite for that type of fishing. I can make very precise accurate casts with baits like small poppers and work them in current and around wood cover without getting hung or making big splashes. I can throw right on a fish I see and get it to bite with a feathery light presentation.

Now if I need to drop on a fish in deep water quickly, a spinning rod is going to be better. If I need to bomb a 70-yard cast, a baitcaster with a heavier lure is going to perform better. So again it’s not made to do everything, so don’t view it that way. It’s a precision tool made for precision applications in fishing.

WHERE BFS EXCELS

The spools actually work better with less line. So I often only measure out about 100 feet or 120 feet of line and put it on the spool. With braided line I might go a little more because the braids I use like Varivas might have diameters of 1-pound line, so they take up a lot less room on the spool. And, when you only use 100 feet, you can get a lot more mileage out of your line. Which is awesome. So I switch more and keep my line fresh. So that makes it attractive to me.

I have also found BFS to really help with bait control. For instance, I have been using it for crappie and panfish for 4-5 years now. I find where I fish on Kentucky and Barkley Lakes, you are often dealing with current. I can get a bait to suspend easier and stay in the strike zone a lot better on BFS than I can with my spinning rods. I am more precise with the movement of my baits for some reason and really able to slow a bait down to get bit. It’s been an interesting development that was not expected when I started fishing with BFS.

Where it has really stood out for me is cast control. I am very accurate caster and with my with my BFS setups I can be that with light lines and little baits. Which is nice if you like to hit precise targets in tight quarters. It’s more important to me when I’m trying to land a small jig or topwater between the fork of a laydown from 50 feet away. I can pinpoint a spot and lay it in there feathered perfectly with one hand with no splash at all. I have also come to really love mini glides on BFS gear and making super precise casts to fish I see.

You can do this stuff with a spinning rod, but I have so much more control of my line and how my lure lands with a BFS setup. I’m a pretty good target caster with conventional baitcasters, and I am a proficient roll caster, flipper, frog and jig skippers on conventional baitcasting gear. So BFS fishing translated well for me. It just allowed me to use much lighter lures with these casts. But if you’re not proficient with baitcasters, it might be a little longer learning curve.

I will say though, if you are not fluent with baitcasters, BFS is a great way to learn. You don’t have as much line so there is not as much to backlash. And it’s more of a lob cast than a whip cast like with conventional baitcasters. So you learn good mechanics with a spool that takes less inertia to spin. So you loft the lure with a roll cast or up-down cast and feather with your thumb. I tell people a lot to learn baitcasters with a BFS reel and then progress from there.

SETTING UP TO BFS FISH

If you are fluent with conventional baitcasters, then setting up a bait finesse system reel will seem backwards to you. If not, then it might be easier to pick up. I usually start with the spool loose. Then, I start tightening the tension knob until I can’t feel the spool shift back and forth in its cradle. I will tighten down the tension a little, then put my thumb on the spool and try to shift the spool back and forth in the reel. If it moves a lot I will add tension. If it doesn’t move at all I will loosen the tension just a little.

Then I will take and turn the magnetic brakes way up. I will make a cast expecting it to not go too far. Then I will back the magnetic brakes off a little and make another cast. Then as I get more distance, I will feel for my spool and manage overrun. If it starts overrunning too much, I will bump the brakes back up some. The goal is to control overrun at the end of the cast but keep the spool loose to start spinning with low inertia at the beginning of the cast with your tension adjustment.

The nice thing about setting your reel up like this is that after you get it dialed in, you won’t adjust it too much, unless you get into really winding conditions and lures that catch a lot of wind on the cast. That will take some fine tuning again. But with just regular conditions, you will be good to go for most baits.

MY FAVORITE BFS RODS AND REELS

I have tried three or four dozen different rods for BFS. And I’ve fished 20-30 different reels. I love the Shimano Conquest BFS reel. It’s hands down my favorite BFS reel for many reasons. It’s built like a tank, easy to maintain, and has the smoothest cast control out there.

I have also loved the Dark Wolf Ultra for the price. These reels travel with me everywhere. Pair it with a Tsurinoya Dragon Rod, and you have a good combo for around $150. I have gifted a couple of these combos to fishing partners. And they still use them constantly in their fishing as do I. These are my main panfish BFS combos often spooled with 4-pound mono or 8-pound braid and fluoro setups.

My favorite stream rod for trout is the Megabass Great Hunting Huntsman for hard baits and the Megabass Triza travel rod for jig fishing. I also really like the Palms trout rods and Major Craft Finetail rods.

For bass fishing I have liked the FishUSA Flagship BFS Rod, Major Craft Benkei, Crony Stream Series, Dobyns Sierra, and the Megabass Destroyer BFS rods.

I also like the Daiwa Gekkabijin and Silver Creek Air TW reels for BFS fishing and the Ark BFS reel has been a nice addition as well as the Shimano Aldebaran BFS. But most of my fishing with Bait Finesse System happens with the Conquest or the DWU.

I have fished with an Abu Garcia 1500 and 2500C reel that is tricked out with Avail spools and gears and I love it. So I just picked a 1500 up from Japan and am ordering parts to BFS super tune. Hit me up, however, if you have an old 1500C or 2500c Ambassadeur laying around you want to sell.

MY FAVORITE BFS SITUATIONS IN FISHING

As I mentioned, I absolutely love BFS for panfish and I absolutely love it for creek fishing. But I’ve been using it a lot in my crossover exploration the last few years. I’ve been taking gear and techniques back and forth from crappie to bass fishing and bass fishing to trout fishing. Mixing in trout techniques and lures into my panfishing and trying panfishing techniques in my bass fishing and taking stuff like mini glides and just seeing how many different scenarios and types of fish those will work with.

That has made the BFS exploration a lot of fun for me. Whether it’s working small trout jerkbaits quickly through running shoals, or popping a popper around a laydown on a winding creek. From pitching mini jigs and craws to bass and then using the same jigs to catch big gills and panfish. I’ve been using trout plugs for crappie, bass glides for trout, panfish jigs for bass and more. And doing a large portion of it on a BFS setup because I’m often making short accurate casts to fish and presentation is everything.

When I’m just bombing casts and covering water, or just drifting lures through areas, I usually have a spinning rod in my hand for small lures or a baitcaster with big baits. But when I am exploring new waters and really fishing for fun for myself, I am often throwing some sort of BFS setup for a bunch of different species.

NOT FOR EVERYONE

I’m not here to convince you to do things my way. And don’t get me wrong, I’m never selling my swimbait rods and 4-ounce glide baits. I still love to fish that way too. Just like I enjoy picking up a fly rod and catching trout and panfish. I’ve never been that type of person to tear down how other people like to do things or convince them my way is better. I hope to encourage people to experiment more in their fishing. And maybe help them with their own explorations along the way.

Crossover, chase different fish, try new things, use different gear to make yourself a more well-rounded angler and to enjoy the learnings and new processes you discover in fishing.

I love to try new things and fish new places. So it’s all about exploration for me. For others it’s about fishing a certain way, using a certain bait or fishing a certain place. If you try to keep your fishing as simple as possible, then BFS might not be right for you.

I will say, whatever you like to do with smaller finesse tackle, a BFS option might fit. And you might find better presentations as a result.

But some will still look at you like you are crazy. I recently fished a bit with some pro anglers, one who happened to be from Japan, again where BFS originated, and he scoffed at me for using BFS stuff in his boat. He was fishing a certain way for suspending fish using big rods and big topwaters. I was simply testing some new gear from the folks who were putting on the event. So I wasn’t serious about the fishing. I was there to interact and learn more from other anglers.

However, this angler made more than one comment about how wrong using BFS was. I just smiled and nodded politely. At the end of the day, I had more bites and landed more keeper fish than he did on my “wrong” BFS gear. And that was behind two pro anglers. So again, I am happy folks like the ways they fish. I’m not trying to convince anyone otherwise. But if you like to test your boundaries a little, and on the fence about BFS, you are likely to find some gear that might work better than the same old stuff you’re used to in various situations.

Check out those guys I mentioned early in the article, and you will ramp your BFS knowledge up quickly.