St. Croix’s Avid X earns seasoned veteran status in the year of its birth.
By the time he was 4 years old, chess prodigy Samual Reshevsky was making the ultimate checkmate commonplace; a few short years later he was defeating even the most accomplished players with ease. Then there was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who, also by age 4, was considered one of the most prolific music composers of the Classical Era. And then who could forget Pablo Picasso who, you guessed it, was a 4-year-old when he brushed his first masterpiece: Le picador.
Satirically, one must wonder: What took these kids so long to get noticed?
Fishing has its own prodigy children, too. Every now and then, a brainchild prototype leaves the minds and machines of its creators graced with the predetermination to become a quick legend. Said phenomenon happened to St. Croix Rod.
A mere five-and-one-half months after its introduction at ICAST in July of 2014, the Avid X series was set free to stock St. Croix’s elite dealer base. Within mere weeks of delivery, many of the most ardent-anglers owned and were already praising Avid X.
Seven months after its debut, Avid X casting models garnered top rod honors in Field & Stream’s Best of the Best: New Fishing Gear 2015 – an honor parallel to a truck being recognized by Motor Trend.
Piling-it-on in a good sort of way, Game & Fish Publication/Sportsmen Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award went to St. Croix Rod’s Avid X for “Favorite Spinning Rod.”
The editors have spoken, and so have the anglers.
So what makes the Avid X so perfect to palm and cast, as well as gobble up votes like a Republican candidate in Texas? Technology, craftsmanship and know how.
Every Avid X spinning and casting rod is a ground-breaking version of the company’s ever-popular Avid Series, sharing the same core blank technology. This means it’s built on a premium, featherweight, high-modulus SCIII graphite blank with Integrated Poly Curve® tooling technology, which offers smooth-action alongside incredible sensitivity and strength.
A Fuji reel seat with gunsmoke hood is fitted to the blank, surrounded by lightweight, all-new counterbalanced select-grade split-grip cork handle. There’s even an innovative hook-keeper to hold a bait of most any caliber, all the while abolishing issues associated with annoying line wrap.
As for the Kigan® Z micro-guide platform offered? The Z guides with slim, aluminum-oxide rings and reel-seat-matching gunsmoke frames are designed to reduce weight while maintaining proper stripper guide ring height for optimal line flow. To boot, the guides are skillfully wrapped with nylon thread and sealed with two coats of Flex Coat slow-cure finish.
Designed and handcrafted in Park Falls, Wisconsin, the new Avid X series melds the utmost performance with unparalleled value, in lengths, actions and powers built for extreme bass and walleye anglers. The series features 18 one- and two-piece spinning and casting models, with every 2-piece model sporting St. Croix’s exclusive slim-profile ferrules. And all are protected by a 15-year transferrable warranty backed by St. Croix Superstar Service. Most Avid X models retail at $200.
As the editors of Field & Stream put it: Best of all, you get St. Croix quality at a sweet price.
About St. Croix Rod
St. Croix Rod is a family-owned and managed manufacturer of high-performance fishing rods headquartered in Park Falls, Wisconsin with a 65-year heritage of USA manufacturing. Utilizing proprietary technologies, St. Croix controls every step of the rod-making process, from conception and design to manufacturing and inspection, in two company-owned facilities. The company offers a complete line of premium, American-made fly, spinning and casting rods under their Legend Elite, Legend Xtreme, Legend Tournament, Avid Series, Premier, Wild River, Tidemaster, Imperial and other trademarks through a global distribution network of full-service fishing tackle dealers. The company’s mid-priced Triumph, Mojo Bass/Musky/Inshore/Surf, Eyecon® and Rio Santo series rods are designed and engineered in Park Falls, Wisconsin and built in a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Fresnillo, Mexico. Founded in 1948 to manufacture jointed bamboo fishing poles for a Minneapolis hardware store chain, St. Croix has grown to become the largest manufacturer of fishing rods in North America.
By: Cory Schmidt
