Ignore the Labels and Just Fish It : Lucky Craft's LCMG 761XHF

Total Score: 7.92 - GOOD

Introduction: Last year, Lucky Craft’s Fat Mini Magic Cranking Stick ran away with double award honors during our Crankbait Rod Wars, and while their Search For One entry is still busy dueling amongst the other remaining contestants, we thought we’d take a step back and check out what Lucky Craft’s big bait sticks are all about. For a company with so many quality crankbaits, its not a stretch to imagine their cranking stick would perform well, but can they create the same kind of magic with their big bait sticks? Certainly our Swimbait Rod Wars of 2008 have long since been completed, but what means is we now have a good deal of data against which to compare the Lucky Craft big bait sticks. So do they have what it takes? Introducing our review of the Lucky Craft LCMG 761XHF-Swim Bait Special.

Introducing Lucky Craft's LCMG 761XHF "Swim Bait Special"

Impressions: While this review will concentrate specifically on the LCMG 761XHF- Swim Bait Special, we also fished the LCMG 800XHXF Big Bait Special. Both sticks feature full rear cork grips and matching foregrips and come standard with Fuji, stainless steel framed guides with SiC inserts. The graphite material in each rod is sourced from Japan, but is shipped to China for rolling and the final rod build. Like the 701MF before them, both the Swim Bait and Big Bait Specials were super clean in their builds though admittedly, very conservative. It’s interesting what the addition of just a split rear grip can do to the overall impression of a stick. The 701MF actually has a very small portion of graphite exposed at the rear grip, but just that bit of exposure is enough to give the rod a very interesting appeal. The two sticks in this review are less intriguing.

Fig. 1 : This RoD Deflection Chart shows the deflection characteristics of both the LCMG 761XHF and the LCMG 800XFXH against all three category curves from our Swimbait Rod Wars.

Lab Tests: But of course, aesthetics are just one small part of the overall TackleTour review equation. First stop for both of these sticks was the lab and a date with the RoD WRACK. What we found is that both sticks charted very similarly and both are right in the wheel house of our “All Purpose” average for big bait sticks.

Similar to the 701MF, both the 761XHF and 800XHXF are a bit tip heavy with balance points measuring out to eleven and twelve inches from the centerline of the reel seat respectively. Balancing torque numbers are 0.33 foot pounds from the 761XHF and 0.48 for the 800XHXF reinforcing their tip heavy feel. Given these sticks weigh six and a half (6.5) and seven point seven (7.7) ounces respectively, these numbers are all decidedly average at best.

Much like the 701MF reviewed last year, the 761XHF sports clean detailing.