St. Croix Rods Triumph Product Review

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Are you looking for a quality rod for under $100? That's getting pretty tough to do these days. St. Croix is a name that you can trust and a company that has been in business for a long time. If you are like me, you are hard on your rods.  You fish with a lot of people both in your boat and theirs. You travel a lot. While you do your best to take care of your rods, things happen. Breaking a $250 rod is a tough pill to swallow.

Thankfully, St. Croix has their Triumph line of rods, which is their entry level rod. I have owned 4 of these rods and I can attest that they are well worth the money.

You can find info on their rods here.

St. Croix lists the Specs as:

• Premium-quality SC^II graphite.
• Outstanding strength, sensitivity and hook-setting power.
• Finely tuned actions and tapers for superior performance.
• Hard aluminum-oxide guides with black frames.
• Fuji® DPS reel seat/frosted silver hoods on spinning models.
• Fuji® ECS or TCS reel seat/frosted silver hood on casting models.
• Premium-grade cork handle.
• Two coats of Flex Coat slow-cure finish.
• 5-year warranty backed by St. Croix Superstar Service.
• Designed in Park Falls and handcrafted in Fresnillo, Mexico.

Most every outdoors shop from Dick's Sporting Goods to Gander Mountain to your favorite local bait shop carries these rods. They offer right around 20 different 1-piece spinning rods and 5 casting rods as well as rods for traveling, muskie, and salmon fishing. Naturally, you know which I am most interested in.

I have owned the 6'6'' MH, the 7' M and the 7' MH. The 6'6'' makes a terrific topwater rod, the 7'M makes a fantastic T-and C-rig rod while the 7'MH mkaes a great flipping rod.

Pros:

• Price Point of $75-100 is tough to beat
• Quality construction
• Great Warranty
• Widely carried by all kinds of outdoors shops
• They are commonly put on special. For example, Dick's is offering $20 off any St. Croix if you trade in a rod. They will also offer a free hoody with purchase, many times.

Cons:

• I don't care for the full cork grip. After a few years, the cork will deteriorate
• The rod tips are simply glued instead of glued and wrapped. I have had to reglue several rods
• Not much selection in casting rods. you have 5 to choose from. They do not make a heavy rod.
• They do not have any fiberglass rods for crank baits
• Not very "flashy". I personally don't mind that.

These rods are very comparable to the Wright & McGill Skeet Reese rods, which cost about $20 more, thought the W&M have foam split grips.

However, for the money, I would go with the H2O XPRESS Ethos rods, which you can read my review of here.

Overall, a great quality rod. If you dont' want to spend a lot of money  and you want good quality with a great warranty, look no further. These are especially attractive for people who are either on a budget, just starting out, or rely extra heavy on spinning gear and don't need many specific casting rods.