I can’t recall getting the opportunity to fish with and review three lure rods from the same range at the same time that I haven’t been involved in, but thanks to the lovely people at Tacklewave UK - the Major Craft, IMA and Keitech importers/distributors - I was able to do just that. Three brand new Major Craft lure rods which I presume have primarily been designed for the extensive (sea) bass market over in Japan and which have naturally found their way over here. Priced at around £300, these new Major Craft Tidrift rods are around £65 more than the roughly £235 Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom rods which have got such a good reputation, but cheaper than the two limited edition Custom Seabass rods which aren’t available anymore. So we’re talking about some higher end lure rods here, and because they are made by Major Craft I was seriously interested to see what they were like………….
As I said on a Facebook post after I fished with the Tidrift 9’6’’ 962ML 7-35g rod for the first time, I don’t know what Major Craft are smoking over in Japan because these are some of the easiest and most efficient lure rods you could hope to fish with. Whatever they are doing with what they are calling 5G carbon is quite remarkable, indeed it’s hard to describe just how smooth these rods feel when you fish with them. We are talking about some seriously, seriously lightweight lure rods here which definitely share a collective DNA in that they are remarkably easy to cast and literally refuse to bite back at you however badly one might occasionally send a lure out there. The 8’6’’ weighs a miserly 114.5g, there isn’t a 9’ in the range which surprises me, the 9’6’’ 7-35g weighs an incredible 132.5g, the more powerful 9’6’’ 10-45g weighs only 134.5g, and there’s a 10’ 10-45g which I haven’t seen and which weighs a rather silly 145g. As I said, the Major Craft bods are smoking some serious stuff in their HQ.
Which would all be rather wasted if these rods weren’t much good - but they are. These rods are very smooth and easy whilst also being nice and fast and without what can be a slightly jarring “sharp” feeling with some of the faster rods if that makes sense. They work with you all the time and the three rods I have fished with are very easy to compress. You can feel what the rod designers are collectively getting at with this range, but of course the three rods are meant to be different with their casting weights. I have not spent a huge amount of time with these rods, but I have fished with them all in some of the conditions I envisage them being used, and multiple dog walks have been taken up with trying all manner of different lures and indeed spinning reels on the three rods.
The little Major Craft Tidrift 8’6’’ 862L/ML 5-30g is a wand, plain and simple. If you like these shorter lure rods and you want to feel almost no weight in your hand when you fish with it, check this thing out. The handle length is too short for me to fall head over heels with this rod, but I could easily get used to it, and for reference my friend Marc Cowling tells me that the handle on this rod is a couple of centimeters shorter than on his beloved 8’8’’ Seabass Custom. As an 8’6’’ lure rod this Tidrift is a peach, and whilst you can bang a 30g Surf Seeker on it if need be, if you need to fish with lures over say 25g a lot of the time then to me you’re buying the wrong rod. Use this 8’6’’ Tidrift to fish with those smaller to medium surface lures and soft plastics especially. The Patchinko 125 or SG Slap Walker 12.5cm/20g fly on this rod, I can’t get enough of the killer little SG Pop Walker 2.0 9cm/11g with a rod this light and responsive, both sizes of my Gravity Sticks work really well, and I love fishing with that SG Gravity Shallow shallow-diver in both sizes on this rod (rod tip up, slower retrieve etc.). I wish I had the older and much loved Skyroad 8’6’’ to hand to compare to this 8’6’’ Tidrift because I am getting some Skyroad plus a dose of more modern rod technology vibes when I fish with it. To me this is a very good thing but of course it’s just a feeling and nothing more.
The Major Craft Tidrift 9’6’’ 962ML 7-35g is one of those rather unique lure rods which I think would suit so many UK and Irish bass anglers, and especially if you are not fishing particularly windy bouncy conditions most of the time. The tip on this rod is so subtle and precise and I absolutely love it, but a tip like this is obviously going to lose some performance in stronger winds. Anybody could bend this rod pretty well in the cast and get a really good performance out of it, and to me it’s almost too nice a rod to be fighting windy conditions with it which of course kills so much feel on any rod. When it’s windy I tend to prefer a more powerful rod with how the tip tends to bounce around less anyway, so for me this 9’6’’ 7-35g is very much an all round, incredibly easy and efficient lure rod. It’s not quite as steely as the Limited Edition and no longer available 9’6’’ Seabass Custom, but from what I remember of that stunning rod I would more than happily go for this Tidrift. You might not need a lure rod like this for your own fishing, but I defy you not to like it, indeed this 9’6’’ 7-35g is one of the easiest to enjoy, “standard” 9’6’’ rods I can recall. It just works with you rather than against you. Absolutely effortless, incredibly light, easy to use, this for me is the pick of the three. It is that stunning and smooth to fish with it I can’t help but grin literally every time I cast it. Amazing.
The Major Craft Tidrift 9’6’’ 962M 10-45g is obviously a step up in power, but again it’s a very easy to fish lure rod. If you don’t need to fish the much lighter lures a whole lot then this particular Tidrift could easily be an all round lure rod for many lure anglers. I can easily press it into action in the surf albeit I’d like a stiffer, less subtle rod in all that turbulence - you don’t actually need a stiffer rod by the way, it’s just what I prefer - but really this 9’6’’ 10-45g comes to life when you need to step things up a bit or if you quite simply prefer fishing with a slightly more powerful rod than the 9’6’’ 7-35g version. You are losing absolutely nothing in feel and ease of use, but a 10-45g lure rod is going to obviously cast and work say a 10g surface lure with a touch less precision than a 7-35g rod. If you are not going to be fishing with any bass lures over say 30g then I’d go for the 9’6’’ 7-35g, but if you are going to be pushing 40g and over yet you still need that precision to fish soft plastics like the Gravity Sticks or crush the Patchinko II or Sandeel Pencil 150/30g out there then this is the one to go for. Up until now I have tended to prefer the 10-30g and 7-35g Major Craft rods over their next step up rods, but with this 9’6’’ 10-45g Tidrift I think they have smashed it big time. I’d be fascinated to see a 9’ version of this 10-45g rod in fact. Those Major Craft Triple Cross EU Custom rods are really good, but to me these new Tidrift rods are a big and rather noticeable step up.
I am pleased to see Major Craft using these really comfortable Fuji VSS reel seats across a number of their new lure rods now, and you can’t go wrong with the lightweight but nice and tough Fuji S-SiC K series FRAME guides. I like how these Tidrift rods are almost paired right back with their simplicity of design and looks. Why not let the rod itself do the talking? If you tied me down I’m going to take the 9’6’’ 7-35g with how sublime it is to fish with, but the other two are equally good - it’s just that fishing with the 9’6’’ 7-35g is so utterly effortless I can’t help but grin all the time. Any of these three Tidrift lure rods will work for different bass anglers in the UK and Ireland and it’s been really interesting to be able to compare and contrast the three different rods from the same range like this. Major Craft are smashing it at the moment and I take my hat off to them and to Tacklewave UK for making rods like this available to us junkies. A big thanks once again from me for getting me access to these rods and if the 9’6’’ 7-35g is missing from the return parcel you know where it is!
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