Vintage St. Croix Fishing Rods

Fishing takes us to any or all sorts of places we would otherwise never see. Park Falls, Wisconsin, is one of those places. Out-of-state plates usually fit in with folks who know it's home to your St. Croix Rod Company. Their pilgrimage takes them as much as this remote hamlet of North Country to see where IPC® technology was conceived and refined. To stand close to the spot where St. Croix aligns the newest improvements in technology with time-honored handcrafting processes to build a few of the finest fishing tools offered. In Park Falls, they even look for just what could be the sole pole company that uses engineers to your workplace alongside rod developers. And, finally, these mighty pilgrims find themselves lined up using the heart of fishing by breathing the same environment that fuels the hand-assembly of nearly every St. Croix rod.

Milestones

1948 first Multi-Section Bamboo Fishing Pole: How it all started! St. Croix Rod business had been created when the Johnson brothers applied innovative reasoning into the vexing issue of moving lengthy poles. Bamboo fishing equipment is not any longer part of St. Croix, but revolutionary reasoning has remained the foundation.

1955 Dedicated Salmon/Steelhead Rods: The replacement of bamboo with fiberglass had been seen by St. Croix designers as an exceptional opportunity. Rods specialized in boost success whenever fishing for particular types or perhaps in unique environments (like the rolling browse) had been quickly coming off the production range. In 1955 St. Croix had just two salmon/steelhead models but there is twenty-four because of the following year.

1956 "Whip-Out" telescopic, tubular, fiberglass rods: Simplistic in contrast, St. Croix Whip-Out and, later on, Flip-Out rods were cherished by generations of fishermen and women. Whip-Outs and Flip-Outs folded for storage and transportation but longer to provided twenty legs, depending on model, with regards to came time for you to fish. Initially marketed in 1956, multi-section, telescopic rods had been final present in St. Croix catalogs in 1993; a phenomenally long haul in the wide world of production fishing rods.

1956 Fly Travel Rod: 3-piece: long-ago, St. Croix appreciated the need for fly rods in travel models. Introduced in 1956, the 978-3 personified another St. Croix custom; the total amount of high quality, convenience and price, with regards to filled and cast really, disassembled into three sections and detailed for $15.00. And therefore included a cloth sack and rigid pipe. Incidentally, use D, HDH or HCH range when you yourself have a 978-3.

1957 colors Impregnated Glass: colors bonded into and not painted regarding fiberglass of a fishing rod may not appear to be an issue but it was indicative of additional effort common in St. Croix items from the beginning. Control features always believed that our rods must be a source of pleasure for you personally and us beyond the showroom.

1957 committed Musky Rods: for sale in 4'6", 5' and 5'6", the Premier® Model 200 had been meant specifically for musky hunters for the time. Manufactured from solid fiberglass for the stoutest of freshwater fish, old-timers dug into their wallets for $14.95 going to water basic bruisers. How many muskies caught proves the Model 200 ended up being worth every penny.

1957 first Ultra-Light Rod: Remember the 8100-L? Few do, nonetheless it was the great-granddaddy of a flourishing family of St. Croix ultra-lights. Integrated four lengths with a Tennessee handle for arms and reel, rods ranged in body weight from 3-1/2 oz. for 78" model to simply 2-1/4 oz. for the 48" version. Not bad for fiberglass and 1950s technology, whether or not we say-so ourselves.

1959 Ice Rod/Reel Combo: For decades fishermen of frozen north have looked to St. Croix for ice fishing requirements. Initial "combo" consisted of a 40", solid glass, Model 40-C mounted with a #66 casting reel secured on a spin/cast, offset handle. A dollar had been a dollar in the past and a 40-CR (reel included) retailed for only $3.60.

1961 Triple-Fiber information: An ultra-thin glass cloth combined with superior phenolic resins and a perfect plastic elastomer allowed St. Croix to present the Imperial "XL" line of casting, spin/cast, spinning and fly rods. Included was the 7080-XXL, the initial full-length (6') spinning rod to consider under two ounces.

1963 Micro-Cell Foam-Filled Tubular Fiberglass: easily recognizable because of the 14K gold-plated guides, it had been what was inside St. Croix Magna-Flex rotating, spin/cast and fly rods that certainly put all of them apart. Filled up with a urethane foam, flex power had been increased by above 25per cent while impact resistance experienced at the least a 50% gain, with little rise in weight. Each rod ended up being packed in a padded, metallic rod-reinforced situation for $50.00.

1966 EFT (Extra-Fast Taper): dealing with the muscle mass put on one end by the angler and other by an obstinate seafood, St. Croix pole designers created the Extra-Fast Taper (EFT) idea. Employing a design that encouraged a progressive flexing activity from end to end, EFT had been but one step in a continual research of pole behavior and improvement.

1970 Rhino-Flex Action: the development of the Criterion number of
St. Croix rods introduced with it another modification in pole design. Each development in product, every revelation in pole analysis, allowed mechanical engineers to tweak St. Croix rods for advanced overall performance.

1979 Ferrule-S: Handmade metallic ferrules for bamboo rods provided birth to St. Croix Rod business over thirty years back. With time bamboo had gradually offered method to fiberglass and today it absolutely was time for conventional ferrules to follow along with. Generally Ferrule-S (pronounced "ferrule-less"), this most recent development offered a more protected fit, removed the chance for material components to decline, and streamlined the manufacturing procedure. Molding the ferrules on accuracy steel mandrels made good sense. And better rods.

1983 100% Graphite: Destined to change fiberglass for many different factors, St. Croix brought graphite to angling in 4300 Series. Known as Imperial Graphite, they led how for a huge selection of graphite models in St. Croix's present lineup.

1991 Personalized Surf Rods: St. Croix teamed up with distinguished surf fishing legend Ben Doerr to create an entire a number of extreme-performance surf rods built to attain maximum casting length and precision. Featuring especially designed graphite blanks and cork tape manages, the Ben Doerr Surf program premiered and quickly gained a national following.

1999 SCIV, SCIII, SCII Graphite: "the best possible graphite and resin methods the planet provides. Each material is ours alone" reads the 1999 St. Croix catalog. Nevertheless used these days with continous improvements, these exemplary St. Croix products have brought a lot of time of fishing enjoyment to fishermen the world over.

2000 SCV Graphite With Carbon-Matte Scrim: achieving brand new heights of performance, St. Croix introduces SCV Graphite with Carbon-Matte Scrim. This unique product combines our high-modulus / high-strain graphite with an advanced carbon-matte scrim leading to less heavy, more delicate rods. Introduced into the all-new Legend Elite series.

2000 IPC® Tooling tech: St. Croix designers innovate mandrel design utilizing the introduction of Integrated Poly Curve® (IPC®) tooling technology. IPC eliminates transitional points when you look at the empty producing rods with smoother activities, increased energy and greater sensitivity.

2005 ART™ (Advanced Reinforcing Technology™): ART™ signifies the latest development produced by St. Croix engineers. ART is an unique carbon fiber product that adds a magnitude (10X) of strength to a rod blank with which has no rise in blank diameter or fat and it is showcased in choose St. Croix series including Legend Elite and Legend Tournament Bass/Walleye/Musky.