My RodMaker magazine arrived today and I just read your article. I found it very interesting and informative. Even in articles like this I expect to read some sort of marketing but there was none of that in your writing. I'm not opposed to marketing unless taken to excess but it was refreshing to see an article about a large Mfg r's testing processes without any at all. Just the facts and how they were obtained.

Salute!

Raymond Adams
Eventually, all things merge, and a river runs through it..

Ray I don't want to hi-jack your thread, but I had an opportunity to tour the St Croix factory with a group of people this last weekend. I got a chance to see the R&D area that Jason works out of, first let me state that I have never met a more knowledgeable person when it comes to designing rods. He's very frank and truthful in what he will tell you, any question asked was answered. In the article he showed a small portion of the testing and quality control that they have at their disposal. Jason was also a very cordial host for our group and the Schluter family made us feel as though we were family. One other note the factory was state of the art and the employees were very open, helpful and seemed to enjoy working at St Croix. Thank you to every one at the St Croix factory for showing me every thing that goes into making a fishing rod. Mark Blabaum

I wish Jason had been able to test a greater quantity of blanks - the data becomes more meaningful as the number of test samples is increased. However, I don't think the overall conclusions would have changed even if more blanks had been tested.

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Thanks for the nice gestures guys. I truely enjoyed doing that article for Tom and hope to do more in the future. I appreciate that some have noticed I'm not using it as a marketing tool, but rather a learning tool for all of us.

Take Care,
Jason @ St. Croix