Castfanatic B1: Ultra Cheap BFS Reel Beats the KastKing Zephyr?

How is it possible for the Castfanatic B1 to have a stock spool weighing 5.06g and still be priced like the deservedly popular Zephyr BFS reel? Also, does it actually work? Let's find out...

NOTE: Product links in this article will earn commission from qualifying purchases as part of Aliexpress Affiliates programme or similar arrangements for Roro Lure or Deuthlon with my great thanks. Affiliate commissions do not change the ticket price you pay compared to non-affiliate links to the same products.

Castfanatic B1: Specifications & Tale of the Tape

Gear Ratio: 7.2:1 

Max Quoted Line Retrieved per Handle Turn: 77cm or 30.3 inches (on full spool)

Measured Line Retrieved per Handle Turn: 65 cm or 25.6 inches (spooled with 30m 4lb fluorocarbon)

Spool Diameter: 28.6mm (inner) 34mm (outer)

Spool Weight: 5.06g (without bearing) 6.24g (with bearing)

Crank Length (measured between handle-knob centres): 95mm

Line Capacity: 100m of #1 PE (0.165mm) or 120m of #0.8 PE (0.148mm) diameter

Casting Brakes: Magnetic, static, adjustable in the "MagTrax" style with 40 steps (clicks) between "0" and "5"

Audible Drag?: Yes - audible clicker when line is paid out

Max Drag Force: 3.5kg (7lb 12oz)

Line Guide: Conical Ceramic

Reel Body Material: Carbon

Bearing Number: 6 ball bearings plus one anti-reverse bearing

Casting Bearing (spool and side-plate) Sizes:  1x 1034 & 1x 1054 (same as Zephyr) - available from Roro here

Full Video Review (From 1st Impressions to 4 Days of Casting & Fishing Tests)

Check out my in depth experiences with the CastFanatic B1 in the video below:

Before continuing with the main article - here is a list of links mentioned in the video:

VIP Email Newsletter Sign Up: https://fishingdiscoveries.com/bfs-and-ultralight-lure-fishing-club/ 

Gear:

FD Cripple Jerk 50mm/4-g Lures (and barbless single hooks): https://fishingdiscoveries.com/lure-shop/

CastFanatic B1 BFS Reel: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DBNJjx3

Deuthlon Reel Lube Starter Pack: https://deuthlon.com/en-gb/products/fishing-starter-reel-maintenance-kit?sca_ref=1008444.s4fyGo31gj

Soloking ACURA reel: https://fishingdiscoveries.com/soloking-acura-hicc-50/

Kingdom King Pro Rod (1.8-m "Casting" model - comes with "UL" tip and "L" Tip): https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DBMCAEN

Kuying Teton TTC 510S (0.3g - 3-g Lure Weight "Casting" Model 5ft 10" long): https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DFE2zXF

38-mm 1.5g sinking minnow (with single hooks, drops to 1.4g or less):https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DFryzcV

Roro Bearings to upgrade the CastFanatic B1 (exactly same bearings as KastKing Zephyr): https://rorolure.com/collections/1054-1034/products/roro-bearings-fit-kastking-1054-1034-kastking-zephyr-bfs?sca_ref=611308.8TvCny8PJ0

Roro Bearings to upgrade Soloking ACURA (you need two of the 834 size BFS ST bearings): https://rorolure.com/collections/daiwa-spool-bearings/products/roro-ceramic-ball-bearings-1034?variant=41486080180397&sca_ref=611308.8TvCny8PJ0

Unboxing and First Impressions of Castfanatic B1 BFS Reel

The Castfanatic B1 BFS reel is supplied in a no-nonsense box containing the reel (protected inside a clear plastic wrapping), a folded information sheet of component diagrams and a sticker from "The Time" store. It's a no-frills, functional packaging option that's a good match for the extreme budget BFS pricepoint. The main body of the reel is carbon and the crank is a woven graphite construction.

As is common for budget BFS reels, the Castfanatic has grease liberally applied to the main moving components (including the reel handles and worm drive). However, the Japanese NMB bearings on the spool spindle and brake-plate did not appear to be as heavily caked in grease as many competitors' reels. The bearing choice, combined with the spool weight and design, are early indicators of the main focus on making this reel outperform the super low budget price bracket when it comes to casting ultra light lures.

In terms of size, the reel is similar in size to Fishband's GH100 and probably a touch larger than the Zephyr. That makes the Castfanatic B1 noticeably bigger than the Soloking Acura HICC50 though it still weighs in at a respectable 157g in total. To be blunt though, for anyone who finds the Kastking Zephyr just too big for a BFS reel, the B1 is simply not for you.

Likewise, if the bright purple plastic housing for the line guide is a deal breaker, then there is no need for you to look into the casting performance.

Be careful not to cut your nose off to spite your face though...because I found myself very surprised during my testing of this reel.

Before we get into the performance details, you might want to check out the pricing in case you want to try it out for yourself:

Current Pricing of the Castfanatic B1 BFS Reel

You can check pricing and availability of the reel by clicking on the image or button below:

Key Features

The choices of hardened aluminium main gear and copper pinion gear are advertised prominently as providing extra durability and the clicking drag is loud enough to be heard over normal stream noise. Having the pinion gear supported at both ends via bearings should help to maintain a more accurate meshing of the cogs and also increase the lifespan of the gears.

The carbon fibre drag washers give a decently smooth release of line - however the start up pressure at a zero drag setting seems to be higher than more expensive reels. This would probably be solved by application of high quality drag grease - such as Deuthlon's power drag grease.

However, even in its "out of the box" condition, the drag is certainly loose enough to allow the line to be threaded through the guides - I would hesitate to pull the rod tip back towards the handle while pulling out line though. That's true for any rod/reel combo - since a hairpin bend is probably a bad idea for all rod tips. 

During fishing, you'd never need to have the drag pressure as low as what you get at the zero setting of this reel - even if you ended up using 2lb line; so it is definitely fit for purpose.

Casting brake adjustment is via small plastic dial that sits at the upper edge of the brake plate - and is very easy to adjust while still sitting securely at your chosen setting during casting and fishing.

The flattened shape of the conical line guide (from top to bottom) and making the side-to-side angle very wide should help to reduce friction of the line coming off the spool during casting - regardless of where the line guide is sitting on the worm drive. This is another way that the Castfanatic B1 aims to extract the most performance from the very light spool.

The Castfanatic B1 is not a slow BFS reel

As with most BFS reels, it is available in both Left Hand Wind and Right Hand Wind options - though only the one gear ratio (7.2:1). Don't be fooled into only looking at the gearing ratio when judging the speed of a reel though! 

Here's where there can be really big differences between the super small spools of reels like the Daiwa Alphas Air TW 20, Dark Wolf Ultra, Tsurinoya Genius etc. and the larger diameter spools of the Kastking Zephyr, Fishband Clamber Hyper Micro - PLUS the Castfanatic B1.

This reel offers a very interesting combination of extremely light stock spool (potentially great for throwing ultra light lures) with a larger diameter (potentially copes with heavier BFS lures better). Obviously the lightness of the spool tends to help to reduce the start-up inertia which helps when casting light lures. With a larger diameter, you get fewer rotations of the spool per metre of line paid out while casting. For heavier lures that generate and maintain high speeds over longer casts, the lower rpm of a larger diameter spool could make the spool easier to control.

The decision to use a "MagTrax" style brake (below) also gives confidence that casting control should be exactly equal between Left Hand Wind and Right Hand Wind models - which is reassuring.

Overall the predicted performance characteristics were well matched by my experiences while cast testing and fishing with the Castfanatic B1 - which is amazing for an ultra cheap BFS reel!

Casting Performance of the Castfanatic B1

I wanted to compare the "out of the box" completely unmodified reel casting performance with what happens with cleaned bearings. Due to the time needed to clean and replace the bearings, I had to perform tests over two separate days. Because the conditions can vary a lot I decided to benchmark each test against the Soloking Acura on both days.

This proved to be a good move since Day 1 and Day 2 had completely contrasting wind conditions!

Even though I was casting on the same (outdoor) basketball court and using the same rod (Tsurinoya Ares C472 UL), line (30-m of 4lb Trilene Fluoroarbon) and lure (1-g Trout Magnet), the wind strength and direction would have totally screwed up any results if I didn't make a direct comparison to the Acura.

• Day 1 (Uncleaned bearings) there was a very light tail-wind which helped to create maximum distance on the casts for both reels.
• Day 2 (Cast Lubed bearings) there was a stronger head-wind which noticeably reduced the maximum cast distance

For Day 2, the stock bearings of the Castfanatic were cleaned in acetone and then had a micro droplet of Deuthlon Cast Lube applied. The Soloking Acura was kept exactly the same for both days (with upgraded Roro BFS ST bearings) so that any effects of conditions between the two days could be corrected by measuring the performance of the Castfanatic against what the Soloking could do on each day.

Here's what happened to the maximum cast distance recorded for both reels across both days:

While the Acura consistently cast further than the Castfanatic B1 on both days, the cleaning and lubrication of the Castfanatic's bearings massively reduced the gap in performance. As a proportion of total cast distance the difference becomes quite small - though I will still gladly take an extra foot of casting range with a 1-g lure on-stream!

You can try these challenges for yourself and check out the reel here:

During the course of these tests I was throwing casts hard into a headwind and, naturally, when pushing the limits some backlashes were encountered. Unlike many budget BFS reels, including the Zephyr, I never had any loops of 4lb fluorocarbon migrate behind the spool into the side-plate of the B1 though.

While the KastKing is a great looking reel that performs very capably with lures over 2.5g, you just cannot successfully cast a 1-g Trout Magnet with the Zephyr - even with Roro BFS bearings installed. 

Given the Trout Magnet casting performance, I was surprised to find was how well the Castfanatic threw a 4g  Cripple Jerk Minnow...

In fact, the fishing experiences I've had on stream with both 1.4g and 4g hard baits have really been very fun and effective indeed with this incredibly cheap BFS reel. Just the line not going behind the spool (so far!) is a huge plus.

When coupled with the ability to cast a 1-g lure just as well as 4g+ lures along with a drag clicker as standard, then it really puts the Castfanatic leagues ahead of the Kastking Zephyr in my experiences of both reels.

Let's look at the onstream stuff now...

Fishing Performance

Let's address important question right away - "Does the Castfanatic feel just like a top end JDM reel then?"

While this reel is full of surprises - especially in the casting performance arena - you can't expect such a budget reel to be built using all of the absolute premium components, machining and finish you'll find on top of the range Japanese reels. That's just not realistic thinking.

However, the bits that matter (so far at least) work just fine for me. The thumb bar is positive, the free spool spin time is amazing, the drag click is loud enough and the thing casts brilliantly well.

Winding a lure in certainly isn't horrible - but you shouldn't expect an absolutely perfect, buttery-smooth retrieve feeling that you get with Shimano X-ship and Micromodule gear technology. The Castfanatic does borrow the idea of supporting the pinion gear at both ends (pioneered by X-ship) and it actually feels fine in use.

The drag functioned well in use - the clicker is a tiny bit "juddery" but it didn't create any noticeable jerkiness in the payout of line to a fish and the speed of the reel coped well with casting heavy minnows upstream and winding back faster than the flow in a medium size river. At the same time, the long crank handle made it quite comfortable to slow things down when necessary.

If it comes down to a straight choice of what to take fishing with me without taking price into consideration, I'd still go with the Acura overall. This is, in part, due to the dual spool availability - however the increased bearing count and smaller "palmable" size with a slightly more refined feel gives the Acura the edge.

With that said, the unbelievably low price tag (at the time of writing!) for the Castfanatic make it a really excellent choice.

Conclusions

Because of the chunky size, low price tag and purple/plastic outer housing to the ceramic line guide I was prepared to be unimpressed with the Castfanatic B1. However, in the end I was shocked by the wake up call the reel gave me:

If you are searching for the best BFS reel experience on the very tightest budget (and the aesthetics are OK with you), then these tests have given me no choice but to be able to recommend the Castfanatic B1 as something you should try.

I dare say the second hand market for used reels will be pretty active, so if it's not for you it shouldn't be too hard to find a buyer!

I just hope the price stays at this incredibly low level (grab yours on the link below if it seems like a reel for you):

Paul