Thread: Fishing Rod ??

I thought I would give this a shot since, most of you guys probably know more than I do.

Anybody know where I can purchase a new St. Croix Legend Elite fishing rod.

It is 7 ft Fast ML 4 -10lb 1/8 - 3/8 oz one piece.

BPS does not carry this stuff and I called cabelas in Dallas and they do not have it either. They have it in their catalog, but I rather purchase from a store instead of ordering it thru the mail.

Well, the rod is not for me, but my father, since he crappie fish a lot and he wanted an upgrade.

Any thoughts or comments is welcome.

We were just at BPS in OKC yesterday, I glanced at the St. Croix but didn't look close, what price range is this model rod? I build a model IP842 7' ML 1pc. 6-12 Line wt. 1/4-3/8 fast action, it's been one of the more popular crappie rods in Oklahoma.

This rod is $320 in their catalog, my dad is currently using a 6 ft 6 in rod elite, but he wanted a 7 ft one. He bought the rod like 2yrs or 3yrs back at the oklahoma city tackle show.

BPS does not carry any elite series in their catalog.

If you have a Cabelas catalog it is on page 105 of the fishing tackle catalog.

My old man read the both BPS and Cabelas catalog like a bible on fishing gear.

Leland (lip rippers) can build you an awesome rod that your dad will be honored to fsh with.

Gman

If you hav to just have a name brand rod I would suggest a falcon 7'0 spinning rod called a Nestor Falls Spin it is a T-7 split handle very nice rod Rippers would be the best bet for a custom built rod for sure

Well, I have Falcon rod also their lowrider series and regular silver series.

It just that St. Croix has a lighter blank rod and extremely sentive material. I am currently using their tournament series 6 ft 9 fast action for crappie fishing, it helps alot for deep water fishing. Since, I use this rod at lake hefner, where we fishing 30ft of water, casting and retrieving techique.

I also have an all star rod for bass fishing which is another combo I have.

But Falcon is a good rod for their price, I have one for fishing for stripers at Sooner lake that is 7 ft and throw a good 1 oz weight lure.

My dad on the other hand he tried G-loomis, falcon, all star, and a daiwa rods.
He was not too impress with the G-loomis, since he would look at every thing on the rod, how the guild lines are wrap and cork handle also. But the workmanship on the St. Croix and Falcon is absolutely amazing.

I think I said enough, that is why St. Croix is what I prefer. Extremely light and the action is good.

I think my dad's combo and mine is a lot more money compare to most other crappie fisherman would offer to spend.

But it is a huge difference in using a broom stick compare to a lighter stick.

heck I fish with one of my 10 foot gt crappie stixs when I one pole I have over 20 falcon and g loomis rods for all applications but prefer the eva foam handle 10 footer that is just a cheap rod I also have a St Croix avid series I personally see no difference between it and G LOOMIS but to each his own I really like the falcon cross match experts that are new this year very nice rods

I don't know about everyone else, but the best rods for me are the ones that I find in a garage sale or pawn shop. A $35 BnM is quite a splurge to me. If a rod has all it's peices, eyes in tact, and holds a reel good, I'll give her a try. My latest is a 6' rod that came with a shimano spinning reel for $5 at a pawn shop in Owasso. I like the BnM and the Outlaw the BG gave me, but the rest of my collection is really old, and still catches fish. I guess if a fellow had the money for one of those high dollar rigs it would be nice to have. All I know is that for the last 35 years, I have always caught fish on whatever rod I was using. If I am going to spend a good amount of cash on a fishing getup, it's going to be the reel. I have a baitcasting pfluger that I spent $100 bucks on in the 90's, best reel I've ever had.

I'm not trying to knock the high dollar rods by any means, but they are not going to catch anymore fish than the cheapos that I use. When jigging, I normally use a 1/32oz and 1/64oz homespun jigs (cause I'm too cheap to buy them) and no matter what rod I am using, I can still feel that thump.

Well, for me I do not own a boat so me and my dad fish from bank and we been doing it for over 10+ yrs at lake Hefner and other lakes as well. So, we invest in good equipment that will give us an edge from the bank. I start out fishing with cheap equipment, which is okay but it tend to break down over the years of usage. My dad convince me well enough when he was catching more fish than I was when he started to switch over to higher quality fishing equipment.

I talked to several fisherman on the lake and they ask me if I tried slip corking or using a float to swim out there, nope just not my style. I mainly cast and retrieve and work my jig slowly at the bottom and work my way back up. That is where a fast action light rod comes in handy when working a jig at the very bottom nearly 40 ft or more. I let my reel free spool and let it sink, at these depths I noticed that you will need a highly sensitive rod to pick up on light bites and fast action to set the hook.

I found out that Hefner lake is the most challenging lake to fish, since the fish sometimes change their habit of color preferences on the dime and the fish was farther out there.

This year at lake Hefner was interesting since they was biting more on home spun jigs compare to regular tube jigs. But I have that cover, since I tie my own as well.

For Hefner we usually use 1/8 oz jigs smallest is 3/32oz jigs, we would switch to 3/32 oz when we would notice that the crappie wanted a slow drop on the lure compare to 1/8 oz. But we usually use 1/8 to get our jigs out there farther or windy days we switch to a heavier jig of 3/16 or a 1/4 oz .

All good points guy's, Reaper your right on about economy tackle still catches fish, my wife has a couple of old Fenwicks that are very good rods. From my experience building rods since 1983 I can honestly say there is a difference in a high graphite content rod [# of modulas ie; IM7-IM8 ect.] Until I witnessed this firsthand at the Belle Starr marina in 1996, I had just built a Loomis model S720 6' UL, rigged with 2-10 Power Pro. The bite was 1 fish per hour when I arrived {and there were veteran jig fisherman there} with 2- 1/32 oz. jigs on the only way to detect the light bite that day was to see your rod tip raise just slighly...I caught 46 crappie in 2 hours. That was a $90.00 rod then, I sold 6 the next week! After being told they were too expensive, maybe but....they sure worked great! Any rods good when they are on a feed, but when it's tough a good rod shines.