St. Croix Releases Technica Rod Series

On the heels of releasing their new Evos rods, St. Croix has debuted another new fly rod family, dubbed the Technica. Available in weights 3-5, and lengths from 7’9″ to 9′, these rods are primarily dry-fly focused, though from a first glance through their marketing materials, I bet they’ll handle dry-dropper rigs, as well.

St. Croix says the Technica is “capable of delivering precise casts with ninja stealth, while maintaining enough authority to turn-over long leaders in the wind, mend with total control, and produce positive hooksets at distance.”

As with the Evos, St. Croix built the Technica with Mito Graphene, which the company claims allows it to build stronger, lighter blanks than ever before.

“After talking with dedicated trout anglers and guides about the challenges of dry fly fishing, a common issue emerged,” Tom Larimer, St. Croix Fly Fishing Brand Manager, said. “Traditional deep flexing dry fly rods are fine for parking lots and calm days, but when the wind ramps up and you’re trying to get a long leader to turn over, they fall short,’ was echoed from the Deschutes to the Delaware. These conversations led to a unique action specifically tuned for technical trout fishing.”

St. Croix says the action of the Technica can best be described as “balanced.” It features a softer lower-end and mid section to store energy, which produces a smooth-loading feel throughout the cast.

“The Technica series brings technical light-line fishing to the next level,” John Sherman, St. Croix Sales Rep and Photographer, said. “The forgiving flex pattern protects ultra-light tippets and helps keep big fish buttoned up. However, the amount of line speed the rod generates is insane – it casts and feels like a much faster-action stick.”

If you translate all that marketing talk, what you’re left with is a rod that should have a medium-fast action, a softer tip, but enough strength in the butt section to handle larger trout. Whether the Technica lives up to that billing remains to be seen, as I have yet to get my hands on a rod.

This is the second rod St. Croix has built with graphene, which is a material I first became aware of back in college. I had to work with a group to create a business plan for one of my marketing classes, so we came up with the idea of using the most advanced graphite materials to create an ultra-light fly rod. Obviously, we never put the rod into production, but the material we came across was graphene. Graphene is a “one-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice.” That arrangement, along with other features, gives graphene a ton of strength. Adding it to the graphite mixture for a fly rod should, in theory, result in a stick that’s both light and strong.

The Evos was built with graphene, and it’s without a doubt a strong rod. Based on that, the Technica should have more backbone than your traditional dry-fly focused rod, but again, it’s tough to say without getting a rod in hand.

The Technica is on sale now from St. Croix dealers. It retails for $975.