OK, so most people thing that St. Croix rods are one of the most top of the line companies on the market today. Usually just because of the price of their fishing rods. Also, because of their Warrenty. Allow me to tell a story that might change your mind about the quality of their product.

First, why do you offer a lifetime warrenty on some rods and a 5 or 2 year on others? Why offer a warrenty in the first place? Is it because your rods break so much that it is the only thing you can do to sway people to purchase your product? The lifetime rods are more expensive, yet seem to break more often? I've had 20 dollar rods that last longer and IF they do break, shimano, Sage, and others replace them.

Next, you Must send the entire rod back to them (your cost) and provide a $20.00 bench fee. If they determine it is faulty, they will send you a new rod (keeping the $20.00). Not only did you pay $350 for a rod, you payed to ship it and payed them again to get you a new rod. Again, do you feel GOOD that you have a lieftime warrenty?

On their site they have a feature called "upgrade". If you break a rod, you can send it in and (with a fee) can upgrade to a better or newer style. Sounds fishy but I understand they don't have rod materials from 20 years ago. Basically it is like trading in a car... not a warrenty. Also on their site is the fact that "due to popular usage and overstocking of OLDER rods, the upgrade program has been discontinued".... sounds to me like they have a ton of issues with their rods and people are sending them in all the time. Doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.....I sent a question regarding this and have yet to hear a reply.

All of the above is great if you buy a rod from the store (say a Legend Elite). You break it, send it in, and IF they determine it to be defective they send you a new one (which of course you payed shipping at 20 and a bench price at 20). So now you have a brand new legend Elite that costs $350 at the store yet you paid $390 for.... Again, that sucks.

Now say you have a custom rod builder build a rod on their Blank. The blank price is $200.00. The cost of the eyes, thread, epoxy, finish coat, handle, reel seat and arbor are another 50. You don't have anything extra and the build price is $75.00 labor for a total cost of $325.00. What happens when that rod breaks? St. Croix will warrenty the rod blank and send a new one. Who pays for new eyes, reel seat, labor...... ? Is the customer expected to pay again? If so he now owns a $350 dollar rod that he spend$450.00.

As a rod builder, I would not expect my customer to foot the bill (if it was not his fault). But, I should NOT have to eat the cost of materials and labor.

Reason for my rant..... I finished a custom St. Croix build for a customer last week. Beautiful 6'3" rod on their brand new SCv platform. Customer wanted this rod built because St. Croix no longer offers this rod in anything other than split handle and he doesn't like it. THe rod was a Medium weight, extra fast action used for jigging walleye. It is the same rod as the Legend extreme you would buy in Cabelas for $375

He picked up his rod last night at 9pm and he loved it. Everything about it to include the titanium eyes I used and light weight epoxy. The rod is way lighter than a store bought one with a split handle. At Midnight he placed his reel on the rod ($200 shimano stratic) and begain to put line on. The front tip bent and broke just above the 3rd eye 15 inches from the tip. No fishing... no jigging, no nothing. This rod is meant to jig 1/2oz weight and fight big fish yet it could not handle putting line on!

Is it a faulty blank? Without question. Will they replace it? Absolutly? Who eats the cost of new eyes, reel seat, Arbor, thread, and other materials? You guessed it. In the end I will take care of him but, this was no fault of ours.

I will no longer be building St. Croix rods. Sure they back the blank, but what about the rest of it. You don't buy a boat, put a new trolling motor on it, fish finder, ropes and so on, then have the boat leak and take it back only to have the company give you a brand new boat with no trolling motor, fish finder or anything else