I am looking for input on these rods. I've not built on St Croix blanks yet, so any input is helpful.

Thanks in advance,
Paul McRoberts

Extremely nice blanks. For my money, however, the Legend or SCIV is a better value. Very nearly the equal in performance at far less cost.

.............

Fly, casting, spinning?

Overall, you go up in weight a little, but the SCIII rods a great bang for the buck as well.

BUT If you're worried about blank weights, look closely and compare as some of the SCV and SCIV blanks are not much different than the SCIII and cost a good bit more. I'm not the best to explain the weight differences, but I know if weight is the goal, more expensive isn't always the answer.

Example with casting blanks:
3C70MHF - 2.6
4C70MHF - 2.8
5C70 MHF - 2.1

3C70MF - 2
4C70MF - 2.2
5C70MF - 2

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St. Croix service is second to none. I once tried to roll cast off a half-hitch which had materialized on the tip of my #10 fly rod. Unfortunately on the pick-up I snagged a Chinook by the propeller. I pointed my St. Croix at him, down the river he went with the top 1/3 of my flyrod until he reached a the next pool, went under a rock and broke off. At that point the half-hitch apparently came off.
I called St.Croix and although the rod was an obsolete model they rumaged through inventory and sent me a replacement tip within days, no questions asked, at the cost of postage alone. Since then I have acquired several St. Croix rods and built several more on their blanks.

This probably won't help much, but I have several (9 total) St. Croix rods, from the Premier to to the Legend Elite. However they are all factory built rods. The Legend Elite is the finest rod I have ever fished with, and owned as far sensitivity, and castability. I do own (factory built) more expensive rods, but none to equal the Legend Elite. If I could do the blank justice at this point in time I would have already began construction.

My $.02

Roy

I have a new Gallatin Green 2008 St Croix SCV Legend Elite 9' 4wt blank I am building on. It is the slimmest, lightest fast taper 9' 4wt blank I have ever touched. It has a butt dia of only .310" and tip top loose sz 3.5. I did the CCS on it and it came up in low 4.XX ERN and AA of 70. It will be perfect for what I wanted, a light 4wt fast taper trout blank.

I will definitely consider the SCV for future rods as well.

You will NEVER go wrong with St Croix as long as you have properly selected the blank to meet your application. The SCIII series is quite possibly the best blank value currently on the market ... great product, great people, great service and Made in the USA.

I've exchanged some lengthy emails with St Croix agents and they have been extremely helpful on all levels.

That's not to say they are the only company that actually communicates with customers: Karry @ Batson and Robert @ Phenix are more then helpful also!

Can't help but support companies that actually pay attention to their customers....

This is why I buy Batson/Forecast/Rainshadow/Alps products
Thanks, Karry and my distributor.

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Mark Twain
John in Wethersfield, CT