Founded in 1948 to manufacture jointed bamboo fishing poles for a Minneapolis hardware store chain, St. Croix has grown to become the largest manufacturer of fishing rods in North America. St. Croix Rods is a family-owned business that’s headquartered in Park Falls, Wisconsin. The company offers a complete line of premium graphite and fiberglass, made-in-USA, fly, spinning and casting rods under their Legend Elite, Legend Ultra, Legend Tournament, Avid, Premier, Wild River, Tidemaster and other trademarks through a global distribution network of full-service fishing tackle dealers. The company’s mid-priced Triumph, Mojo Bass and Surf, Imperial and Rio Santo rods are designed and engineered in Park Falls, Wisconsin and built in a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Fresnillo, Mexico.
The initial Legend Salt lineup includes a total of ten newbies for the 2011 model year, split between a six-pack of conventional rods and a quartet of beefy spinners. The Legend Salt conventional sticks include 6.5-foot (16 ounces) and seven-foot (16.2 ounces) medium power fast action rods that are rated for either 15- to 30-pound mono or 20- to 40-pound braid; 6.5-foot (17.7 ounces) and seven-foot (18.4 ounces) medium-heavy power fast action rods that are rated for use with either 30- to 50-pound mono or 40- to 65- pound braid; and 6.5-foot (19.5 ounces) and seven-foot (20.2 ounces) heavy power fast action rods that are rated for either 50- to 80-pound mono or 65- to 100-pound braid.
%pullstart%Developed exclusively by St. Croix, Integrated Poly Curve (IPC) tooling technology is designed to eliminate all transitional points in the rod blank. IPC-engineered rods feature smoother actions, increased strength and greater sensitivity.%pullend%For those anglers that prefer spinning gear out on the briny, the Legend Salt Spinning Series rods include a seven-foot (16 ounces) medium power fast action stick rated for 15- to 30-pound mono or 20- to 40-pound braid; a seven-foot (18.2 ounces) medium-heavy power fast action stick rated for 30- to 50-pound mono or 40- to 65-pound braid; a 7.5-foot (19.7 ounces) medium-heavy power fast action stick rated for 30- to -50 pound mono or 40- to 65-pound braid; and a seven-foot (19.9 ounces) heavy power fast action stick rated for 50- to 80-pound mono or 65- to 100-pound braid.
COMMON TRAITS
All of the aforementioned Legend Salt series of offshore rods have a number of traits in common, the first being that these are all one-piece sticks of the highest quality. The rods are designed in-house at St. Croix’s Park Falls, Wisconsin facility, with the conventional sticks featuring Fuji HB saltwater guides with SiC (silicone carbide) rings and gunsmoke-colored frames and the four spinners built using Fuji’s MN saltwater guides with SiC rings and gunsmoke frames. All of the rods in the Legend Salt lineup include Alps Triangular marine-grade aluminum reel seats with a hard-anodized finish; premium EVA foam foregrips with a high-density nylon “slick butt” that makes taking the rods out of a wet flush-mounted gunwale rodholder a breeze; plus two coats of Flex Coat slow-cure epoxy finish to protect the very attractive thread wrappings around the guides. But there’s more, specifically NSi, IPC and ART, which all combine to give St. Croix Legend Salt rods an “invisible strength” that puts them a cut above the competition.
The 3M Company recently introduced a new breakthrough resin that uses nano-sized (ultra-microscopic) spheres of silica as a homogeneous, non-abrasive filler between the carbon fibers of a graphite rod blank, which results in a much stronger, more sensitive finished product. St. Croix named their formulation of this new resin “NSi” and it’s used in all Legend Salt rods. The nano-silica particles in 3M’s Matrix Resin are uniformly distributed and densely packed in the resin that binds the individual graphite fibers, which reinforces them during compression when the rod is flexed. This NSi resin increases the fiber’s compression strength by resisting micro-buckling, for improved hoop and flex strength of the blank. The nano-silica filler also improves the resin’s adhesive bond between the carbon fibers, which increases the internal shear strength of the rod blank while further improving the flex strength. The result is a significantly stronger blank, with an increase in modulus for improved sensitivity, plus a significant increase in fracture resistance and overall blank toughness, without any change in the weight, action or power of the finished rod.
Developed exclusively by St. Croix, Integrated Poly Curve (IPC) tooling technology is designed to eliminate all transitional points in the rod blank. IPC-engineered rods feature smoother actions, increased strength and greater sensitivity. Advanced Reinforcing Technology (ART) is an exotic carbon fiber material that adds a magnitude (10X) of strength with virtually no increase in blank diameter or weight. ART significantly improves the hoop strength of the blank by preventing it from deforming or “ovaling” under a severe load, such as a powerful hookset or a prolonged rod and reel battle. The MSRPs of these Legend Salt rods range between $330 to $400 and all are backed by a limited lifetime warranty.
