St Criox rods snapping like twigs? IPC Avid Spinning rods

[Lindyrig81]

Ive broken 2 St. Croix IPC Avid Series 6'6" and a 7' Med -Fast action rods...AVS66MF and AVS70MF

The 6'6" was 11 months old and it broke from a 41" muskie on tonka, broke right after the 2nd eyelet, the epoxy behind all the eyelets was cracked too. I got it replaced from Dick's sporting goods because I had a year replacement "plan", it took 43 days to get a gift card from them..Next day, went to Dick's got a 7ft version of the same rod..FOUR HOURS LATER,SNAP, broke 8-10 inches of the tip by pulling line from the reel by hand, rod wasnt bent enough to warrant a snap like that, the end popped off like a tooth pick!! So i returned that one 5hrs later..

at no time was the drag too tight for what I was doing.. So, now what?? Any suggestions? Loomis?? Never had a problem with them, I have aa 6'6"light fast action gl2 that brought a 51" muskie in that sufferered no damage what so ever

[upnorth]

There are a several things that will cause a rod to break. One is a flaw in the blank, another is a guide wrapped to tight and crushing the blank and causing a weak spot. More often it is caused by over stressing the rod/blank in one fashion or another. Common thing is to bend the rod at too sharp of an angle and if you are holding the line in one hand and the rod in the other and pulling the tip down to pull line off the drag you are more than likely bending it too sharply.

You want your rods to last you need to treat them nicely. Also don't put a line with a break test on your reel that is over the line rating on the rod, that is just asking for trouble.

[Kris Kristufek]

I would add to Upnorth's comments. There likely was nothing wrong with the St. Croix Avid (IPC) rod from the factory. They are well tested many times before they leave the factory floor. Defects if any are found there long before arriving on the sportshop shelf.

Now, clearly your rod failed for some reason. Best guess on my part without seeing the rod, is that somewhere along the line, especially with the rod you had for 11 months, it got dropped, hit the gunwale of the boat, was bounced around in rough water, maybe was over stressed beyond a 90 degree bend, etc. Anyway it received a bruise. This is where the rod will break. It does not take much to create a bad spot on the blank and it will break at that point sometime in the future, just like you experienced. You caught fish previously on the rod, if failure were caused defective materials it would have blown up long ago.

The second rod: Most likely it was damaged by someone before you "stressing" the tip top to "see" how it "feels" at the sportshop. They bent the rod beyond 90 degrees. Doing so leads to catastrophic failure. We all have put the tip top on the floor and bent the rod... bad practice. Or we grab the tip top and bend the rod... also could be a bad practice.

The lesson here: 1) Do not ever bend a graphite rod beyond 90 degrees, ever! The fibers in the rod simply will come apart and fail. 2) Failure of the rod after fishing it for several months is due to some other problem, not the material in the rod blank.

St. Croix is a world-class rod manufacturer. There are none better. The materials, techniques, redundancy of testing is simply amazing.

The cracking of the rod finish around the guides is a indication of over-stressing. The finish is flexible to a point, in that it will "give" with the bending, but it will not take excessive bending before it starts to crack. I do not think that this is the primary source of the failure however.

I would not be remotely concerned about going back to the store and getting another St. Croix rod. The are the best of the best.

This clearly does not satisfy your immediate dissatisfaction for the failures, but "stuff" happens. Your fault?.... maybe, maybe not. St. Croix's fault?... likely not.

[Lindyrig81]

ok, thank you both very much for the replys, I do have other st. croix rods that I love, so I think i will get another.

Anyone have a absolute favorite besides a custom?

Is it a bad idea to try and build st croix or loomis for a first timer?

[upnorth]

It is not a bad idea to build on either of those to brands the first time through, just know that it may not wind up being your best work if you get into rod building. I just did some cheaper stuff as kinda practice when I first started out and no it is not in the group of stuff I show off. But years ago the 3rd rod I did was a Fenwick HMG graphite fly rod, high dollar stuff back them.

[Kris Kristufek]

IMHO, it is false economy to build on something "cheap". When I started building years ago, thought 2nds were the ticket... wrong. Similarly would you build a house with a tack hammer? Purchase the best products you can afford, they will last a long time, do the job at hand.

Experience and age have shown that top of line products "generally" are much better designed and manufactured products, and the cost... well a few bucks more for sure, but well worth it.

[rodmaker]

I have a few St. Croix's that I've built. No problems with them. You are right about possibly blank flaw. Make sure you are in the line range recommended for the rod.

[Willow Sticks]

Every one of the suggested potential causes are accurate. I can atest to guides wrapped too tight, any rod including St Croix will explode. Braided lines when used in the small diameters still exceed alot of the walleye weight rods. Use braids but realize the are over rated for the rod.

[Kris Kristufek]

Willow Sticks, think you have some terminology confused. IPC is Integrated Poly Curve, which has become the engineering leader in rod making. It is designed to eliminate all transitional points in the rod blank. IPC rods feature smoother actions, increased strength and greater sensitivity. A St. Croix patent and current technology developed by them.

ART or Advanced Reinforcing Technology on the other hand is what I think you are referring to. ART is an exotic carbon fiber material that adds a magnitude (10X)of strength with virtually no increase in blank diameter or weight. ART significantly improves hoop strength of the blank by preventing it from deforming or "ovaling" under severe load, such as a powerful hookset or fish battle. St. Croix again leads the industry with this technology.

I do not think you can wrap a St Croix "ART" blank with conventional rod wrapping thread to cause failure. Just can't happen. The thread will break long before the hoop strength built into the rod will fail.

There is however a relationship with lesser quality rod blanks and thread tension, that well could cause premature failure... but it is not in the current blank line up of St. Croix.

We all need to be sure we use the correct words when criticizing or promoting a manufacture. certainly I do not wish to step on your comments, just requesting correct termonology when posting.

[Chode2235]

I just had a 6'6" ML avid snap on me while on vacation. Brand spankin' new rod, and it snapped on the first snag I had.

St. Croix took care of it without a hassle with their lifetime warranty. PITA, but they made it right.

[CHM]

Point the rod at the snag, hold the spool on a spinning reel and pull straight back. No high modulus ML can pull trees or rocks out of the water. It was not a faulty rod.

[Chode2235]

Pretty sure I know what I am doing CHM, but thank you for the input.

[JohnMickish]

He's right. That is the only way to pull a snag without damaging the rod. If done that way the rod will not break since the rod is not overloaded.

[Trollin226]

One word........ RAINSHADOW

[croixflats]

Point the rod at the snag, hold the spool on a spinning reel and pull straight back. No high modulus ML can pull trees or rocks out of the water. It was not a faulty rod.

Give slack to line set rod down in safe place wrap line around pliers or stout stick and pull.

Rod Blanks can be faulty or new commercial rods of any brand for that matter not always the fault of user.

[Willow Sticks]

Kris, What terminology? I wasn't referencing how a blank was built or assocated technical terms used by manufacturers! And it probably doesn't matter to the guy with a broken rod. It was intended to be informational comment of caution to excessivly torqing rods with braided lines exceeding the blank rating. Do you not agree over torqued rods will eventually be limited in their ability to compress and the place that will limit this compression first is the guide and thread area?

[Kris Kristufek]

Willow Sticks, the title of the post indicates "IPC", which likely has nothing to do with the fact that the rod broke, but does indicated that the rod was a newer(recent)model with some world-class technology built into it. IPC and ART are trade-marked patented marks of St. Croix Rod Company. I simply believe that one cannot break a "ART" or advanced reinforced technology rod by using rod wrapping thread and too much tension. The thread will break long before destruction of the rod blank.

As for continual over-flexing a rod, yes, I do believe that this can ultimately cause premature failure. The blank will only stand for so much "ovulating" or bending before failure. The break can and will occur anywhere along the axis of the blank not necessarily at a guide or thread wrap area. This would be similar to flexing a soda straw, it will bend only so much before failure. Compression on the other hand is something quite different, and I think that is what some of the post referred too. You are very correct that over lining or using greater line strength vs. rated capacity is not a good thing.

[Northlander]

If you broke a rod on a snag it wasnt the rods fault.

[fishwater]

In my opinion dry twigs and quality graphite rods break in a very similar fashion.

[upnorth]

An improperly dressed guide foot wrapped with too much tension can certainly create a point on the blank where there is more pressure and can cause a blank to flex abnormally at that spot. It is always a good idea to check to be sure that all guide feet sit flat on the blank and do not have high spots that can cause a pressure point. If you are wrapping so tight that you can't wiggle the guide foot at all before color preserver or the thread finish you are wrapping too tight.