Originally Posted by
zekepa
Spent sometime looking over the Banshee after catching a couple fish. Did some comparing to a Major Craft Finetail 632 UL as they are from the same company and it seems a good many people have used the Finetail rod.
Both rods have 9 guides with the Banshee having Titanium guides with SIC inserts, Major Craft states the Finetail has SIC inserts but doesn't say what material the guides are. With the Bansee being 3 inches shorter the guides are a little closer together. The guides appear to be the same size to the naked eye, I didn't do any measuring but couldn't tell any difference in size.
Rod texture - on both rods you can feel the texture of where the carbon film (if that's the correct word) overlaps while being wrapped around the rod. The feeling is not as catchy on the Banshee as it is on the Finetail. Looking with a 5X magnifier you can see the wraps stick up a little more on the Finetail than on the Banshee. Each wrap on the Banshee is slightly wider also. Looks like 4 wraps on the Banshee is very close to the same length as 5 wraps on the Finetail.
Weight- Major Craft list the weight of this model as 58g, my small inexpensive scale weighed it at 59.2g, the Finetail 632 UL weighed 54.7g on the same scale.
The Sunfish I caught today ranged from around 4 to 7 inches, the smaller ones were easily felt, and put some bend in the rod.
Bending curve of both rods is almost identical, I compared 1, 2, 3, and 4 ounces. The Banshee is rated as Light while the Finetail is rated UL. The Banshee does have slightly more backbone, so at least Major Craft is consistent with the rod ratings, at least with these 2 rods anyways.
It's been close to a year since I've fished the Finetail, so I can't offer an apples to apples comparison of the 2 rods. I can say I had no problem feeling the jig when twitching a trout magnet when the wind wasn't blowing to much today. The rod doesn't lack for sensitivity. The one time I hooked a random leaf, I though I had a fish, except there was no fight to it.