Update # 1
- I sent St Croix pictures of the 2 rod blanks.
- St Croix sent me a shipping label to return the rod blanks to THEM. (Wisconsin)

Jon Hood

Numerous emails to St. Croix and rodgeeks about blank availability and no responses.

ADDED: As of Christmas, St. Croix has now changed some of the information on the rodgeeks website to reflect their taking it over and "back open" statement while still not answering any requests for U.S. made SCV blanks availability.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/25/2020 07:58AM by Kent Griffith.

Call customer service!
My blanks have been returned to St Croix and I’m awaiting the new order from Rodgeeks.

Jon Hood

Another update for those of you following-
- I returned to 2 blanks in question to St Croix per their supplied shipping label.
- the customer service rep. Credited my account for the cost of the rod blanks.
- I have place another order from rod geeks and I’m awaiting shipping notification.

Jon Hood

My apologies for chiming in on this thread from last month, but I finally made contact with a St Croix customer service rep. I truly appreciated this thread, seeing other rod builders informing each other and discussing the impact on them. You folks are the ones keeping rod building alive.

I say "made contact". I'm still working on an issue with a RODgeeks blank for a customer that ended up being out of spec. I took about 6 weeks to make contact with St. Croix. I had lost trust in Rodgeeks NOT because of quality, Bob Penika or anyone of the great folks who used to work there, but quite simply the delays in communication caused by the acquisition. I just cannot accept too much risk when I'm promising my customers that my suppliers will stand behind products I use in my builds. It's difficult to do that when you can't get a response and your customers are the ones that pay the price for it. I understand Covid has everyone working double duty everywhere so they get a pass for now. However, accountability should still transfer to St. Croix.

I actually wanted custom St. Croix blanks to begin with, and a few years ago St. Croix referred me to Bob Penika, who was attentive and generous with his time. He knows a lot about design and I enjoyed the relationship with RODgeeks. I'll miss that. Unfortunately, I was asleep at the wheel and while I believed St. Croix would eventually acquire them, I wasn't expecting the transition to be so disruptive.

Before I start dropping all their blanks from my line up, which I am poised to do, I'll talk with St Croix and evaluate my courses of action. What won't fly for me is if St. Croix doesn't commit themselves to hobby and pro-rod builders and either make their blanks available again to the rod houses/distributors or rebrand RODgeeks as St Croix (I never liked the RODgeeks branding), because that's what they really were - their excellent tapers and their prepregs where St. Croix. As I primarily custom build fly rods, I understand it's a very small segment of the industry and RODgeeks relied on tapers and designs St. Croix allowed them to make. I hope the St Croix acquisition will change that and open up other designs to us.

Fingers crossed, St Croix is going to do the right thing and not take a dump on rod builders as TFO and others did. If not, then there are other excellent blank makers who can.