St. Croix rods

[northcountryman]

Does anyone have an opinion on St. Croix rods vs. others (Sage, Orvis, etc).? For themost part, i've been goin cheapie w/ my equipment my first sev. yrs. of flyfishing, w/ family and all, you know how it is! Now, that I know what i'm doing a bit more (I think!) I wanna try and upgrade my rods and reels. Last year, I bought a St. Croix 7" 2wt 4pc for small stream fishing. I like it ok but the action feels a bit too slow sometimes to me.
Thanks

[catchm]

I have several Legend Ultra rods that I use for my saltwater fishing. I think they are first rate and 1/2 the price of Sage, Loomis, etc. Generally the old saying "you pay peanuts and you get monkeys" applies, tho there are rods available at lesser prices that are close to the high-priced rods. An option may be to buy a used high-end rod. In some cases you could save $$$ by buying a blank and building it yourself. The reason I said "in some cases" is that companies like Loomis don't sell rod blanks anymore.

[Esopus Guy]

Most small rods I've casted are slower than most. They're not meant for distance,not that a few guys can't haul one for some good yardage. I have a few 5wts that are cannons but the same model/brand in a 3wt is like a totally differant rod and action. It's not the brand that distinguishes how fast or slow a rod is. St.Croix is a good product with a good warranty. I have a 13ft Wild River I centerpin with up state.

Used rods..... UpCountrySportfishing.com has a good selection. They'll do trade ins as well.

[northcountryman]

That St. Croix rod I posted about earlier is now broken!! Man, does that suck!! I'd curse (I did) but wouldn't be proper!! End of the rod broke off, probably by my little girl getting in/out of the car. My own damn fault for not puttingit back in its case. Anyway, I called the co. and they told me to ship it back, insured w/ a check for $50 and they'll replace it. Does that sound comparable to most flyrod company policies?

thanks,

northcountryman

[Adam]

50 bucks is not outrageous...

The TFO's I have are 25 bucks plus the cost to ship...

I had a couple of Sage's and I think the repair cost was 50 bucks for them.

[Duck-butt Chucker]

[quote author=northcountryman link=topic=4762.msg37051#msg37051 date=1282828181]
Does anyone have an opinion on St. Croix rods vs. others (Sage, Orvis, etc).? For themost part, i've been goin cheapie w/ my equipment my first sev. yrs. of flyfishing, w/ family and all, you know how it is! Now, that I know what i'm doing a bit more (I think!) I wanna try and upgrade my rods and reels. Last year, I bought a St. Croix 7" 2wt 4pc for small stream fishing. I like it ok but the action feels a bit too slow sometimes to me.
Thanks
[/quote]

I was at UpCountry earlier today trying out 4 and 5 weights…I tried in total (all 9 footers) Gloomis GL3 4 weight, Winston Vapor 4 weight, Grey’s GRXi 5 weight, TFO TICR X 5 weight, TFO Signature 5 weight, Scott A2 5 weight, Sage Z-Axis 5 weight (just for fun since this is way out of my $200 price range), and earlier this week Orvis TLS 5 weight…asked Grady about the St. Croix’s this morning and he told me that he is not a fan of them at all and accordingly, doesn’t even bother to carry them in his store…he said only the Legend series was decent but you can get a ton of better rods for the same price or less….I hated the Winston and the Orvis the most of the lot as they were all “fast actions” but these two really lacked backbone when loading up…the GLoomis gl3 was bit better than the previous two and then the Grey’s wasa little better than the TFO Professional the TFO was a little slower but also a little smoother…The TFO TICR X, Sage, and Scott were all awesome rods and really fast and smooth…I ended up going with the used Scott A2 5 weight for $160...but the TFO TICR X was surprisingly a really fast, smooth, powerful rod I was impressed with it…the Sage was nice and felt different than the rest of them cause I know they do something special with the graphite shafts (matrix of graphite and something else) but in my opinion although having it’s own unique feel and slightly smoother is really not all that better in terms of performance especially with the price tag it boasts in comparison….all in all TFO’s are not too expensive, come with an excellent warranty, and are really smooth powerful well put together rods so I think that’s what I’d look into getting if I were you or if you can get a good deal on a used rod from there it will still function the same as a warranty stick (except they will just have to send it back for you instead of you send it to the manufacturer directly)…the only one that ever gives them trouble with warrantees is Winston which was the worst rod of the lot anyway cause of their serial number system…I say fix the St. Croix…sell it on Ebay or trade it in with them and get a TFO stick or nice used rod and make sure whatever you buy test it out back beforehand.

[northcountryman]

Yeah, I ordered that 7' St. Croix online, only way you cam probably get a smaller rod, at least around here cuz most flyshops, gander mtn, etc. don't carry them in stock to test out. I'll consider what you said about the TFO's ; BTW, what does that stand for? Might look at Sage as well.

Thanks,

northcountryman

[frankm205]

Try the Greys 7'6" grxi 4wt. Especially for the small streams you fish. I use it on the smaller Westchester srteams and it casts beautifullly, and really has a good recovery rate.. They have them at the Bedford Sportsman in Bedford Hills and I got a pretty good deal on it. We can stop by there next week if you want .

[Duck-butt Chucker]

[quote author=northcountryman link=topic=4762.msg37069#msg37069 date=1282870836]
Yeah, I ordered that 7' St. Croix online, only way you cam probably get a smaller rod, at least around here cuz most flyshops, gander mtn, etc. don't carry them in stock to test out. I'll consider what you said about the TFO's ; BTW, what does that stand for? Might look at Sage as well.
[/quote]

TFO stands for “Temple Forks Outfitters”…here’s Upcountry’s website Farmingtonriver.com click on the used gear/specials on the side to take a look at some of the used stuff they have…and I know they have brand new Winston Vapor 3 weights in 7’6” on sale for $150 and a ton of others including that new TFO Signature series 6’ 2wt and 7’6” 3 wt for $100 and TFO Finesse series 3wt for $179…they also had a beautiful condition Sage SLT 6’3” 3 weight for $275 used (and you still get the warranty if you break it by sending it back through the store) which is really an awesome deal…they have probably close to double the number of used rods in the store as opposed to what they list on their site…like that Scott A2 9ft 5wt I bought yesterday wasn’t even listed on the site and I saw a bunch of others in the store that they weren’t listed on the site either…especially in the case of the smaller rods like you’re looking for…if you can wait until your St. Croix gets repaired I’d wait for that to come back then bring it up and do an agressive trade-in so you get whatever you buy discounted otherwise if you want a rod asap or want one of the used/sale rods I listed then I’d go up later today or earlier in the day tomorrow as it will be crowded as hell up there this weekend through labor day weekend…the TFO’s were fucking sick tho man I was really skeptical about them at first but they cast awesome and are really smooth yet powerful rods for a solid price…definitely test a couple out

[northcountryman]

Thanks for the info guys. Gotta wait till I get a couple paychecks when get back to school before I can buy new stuff but I'll check out the site.
Frank ,when he gonna hit one of those Westchester streams? Gotta be honest bro, when you first said that to me about fishin for trout so close to the city(Westchester)I thought it couldn't be true cuz us adirondack dudes think there's NOPLACE to fish for trout south of the catskills! Guess we're wrong!

Northcountryman