Sweet Heart vs. St. Croix

[Woodguy]

I have heard alot about the Thorne Bros. Rods, but I have never seen one here in PA. I mostly use a St. Croix Premier(28" med action)and it is a good rod, but a little stiff for the panfish. It is fine when the crappies are real aggressive, but miss alot of the light biters. Anyways, are the Sweet Hearts a better choice? What action would be best for targeting crappies/med-sized perch/gills? Occasionally, I will hook onto pike (20 inches or so)in the lake that I frequent, but I do not target them. Hard to buy/choose a rod that I cannot hold before hand!

[Matt Johnson]

I would choose the Thorne Bros rod over the St. Croix Premier, hands down. The Thorne Bros rods are in a class of their own.

Medium action is too heavy for finessing panfish. You need to drop down to a light, or even ultra light model.

The Sweet Heart Plus is an excellent choice, and it's a very sensitive rod. You will detect more bites with the Sweet Heart than you will with the Medium action St. Croix Premier.

I agree, it's tough to determine what you like without getting the chance to see it up close and get a feel for the rod. However, the Sweet Heart Plus by Thorne Bros is one of those choices that will be worth the "surprise" when you see it for the first time, even though you ordered without seeing it first. The 28-inch Sweet Heart Plus will cover crappies, perch and gills like you mentioned...

[PA Steel & Ice]

Hi WoodGuy,

I live in Meadville ,Pa and do a lot of ice fishing around our area. I also build all my own Ice rods. I have used numerous blanks including St.Croix. Depending on how you like to fish , either in a shanty or outside ,I custom

cut my blanks to fit the need and by altering ,can create any action / length I want.

Living in Pa. prevents us from handling a Thorne Bros.rod

without taking a trip or actually buying one. Not sure who's

blanks they are using.

If interested in seeing what I have made or are interested

in building your own ,send me an e-mail.

Rick Sundback

Meadville ,Pa.

[email protected]

[Random guy]

I have to lean on the Thorne rods also. I used to carry a rod for deep crappies and a rod for shallow gills and another rod for deadsticking crappies, arod for this and a rod for that. After getting my hands on a couple sweethearts I now only carry the two rods for panfish. They are constructed well enough to cover a wide range presentations with good feel and they load up on fish awesome. Just my two pennies.

[Cliff Wagenbach]

These rods will also easily handle most of the misc. pike that bite if you put a reel on it that has a quality drag!

I have caught quite a few pike on my ultralite using 4# test line. Many of them will run up to 5#s with a couple going up to14#s.

The trick is to let the drag do it's job and not try to hurry the fish!

Cliff

[gill man]

Thorne Bros without a doubt! I have both the St. Croix Rods and a Thorne 28" panfish Sweetheart. I just LOVE that Thorne rod. I almost can't fish with anything else now.

gill man

[iffwalleyes]

Without question I would use a Thorne. If you considering spending the money and can afford it they are way to go. I will give you some caution about buying one. You won't be able to just have one. 3 years ago I bought my first and over Thanksgiving I got my 8 and 9 one. I have a selection that covers just about everything from Panfish to Lakers I have a rod to do it. Most of them are the sweetheart line though I have a sweetheart panfish, sweetheart perch, 2 sweetheart walleyes and my newest was a sweetheart walleye outside rod. Great rods and great service from Thornes. I broke a deadstick last winter and it was entirely my fault nothing to do with the way the rod was built. I sent it in to them to be repair and they didn't repair it they just shipped me a brand new one. With service like that I am sold for life.