St Croix 1st Annual Ice Show

St. Croix is starting an annual ice fishing show in Park Falls, WI beginning this year. Purpose of the event is to release their new "custom" ice rod series.

Will be nice to have a new ice fishing show in WI with the Milwaukee show no longer happening! Hope there's a good turn out so they have a reason to keep it going!

1st Annual St Croix Ice Fishing Show

We drove over on Saturday. It was small. It was tiny. And, well, was probably just a promotional deal for the new Custom Ice rods. No deals really. I did pick up a B model Finesse Pan for 40.00 off.

Looks like there's going ot be live streaming of their seminars. That's pretty cool for folks who can't make it up.

https://stcroixrods.com/pages/promotions

"Custom" in the ice fishing world now simply means that the rods are tailored to a particular species of fish. Hence the reason St Croix is getting away with calling their new rods "custom".

There isn't a single event out there I'd drive 6 hours for. Maybe a Packer game. An ice fishing show is nothing more than an extravagant walk through a sports store with some decent discounts. Not worth a 6 hour drive unless you're planning on buying a floor model ice castle for a huge discount.

Eskimo, hummingbird, ion, Eurotackle, Firehouse products, and Daiwa all confirmed venders.

I whole heartedly agree that this event probably isn't worth a 6hr drive though. Especially since its the first one.

Fair enough, I stand corrected on the handmade statement. 

"The thing about their “custom” line is it’s still mass produced."

You've obviously never toured this factory. Every rod out of Park Falls is hand made, every one. They literally have folks sitting in their homes hand winding wraps on their upper end rods. I waited 3 months to get a Legend Elite Musky rod because the woman who does the wraps was out on leave.

Do they make more than custom rod builders? Oh yeah, is there less quality? No freaking way, if anything, there's more QC checks than any other rod mfg on the planet.

The thing about their “custom” line is it’s still mass produced. At least TUCR and TB still hand make their series rods. At 130 a pc it is higher then most actual custom makers. Also I’m not driving 6 hours to look at only St. Croix stuff. I’d rather drive to St. Paul for the Ice show there. All the vendors and resorts you’d ever want. 

St Croix has an open house every June and it's packed. Looking forward to this one. I realize it's late fall and the vacationers are up north as they would be in summer, but I'll bet this has a very good showing.

I gave my opinion, no need to argue opinions

Let's re-phrase my initial response:

"What would be a better weekend?" Or better yet "Why is that a bad weekend?"

The following weekend is opening of gun hunting, anything later than that is ice fishing. The 2-4 weeks before that are still prime rut (the weekend before), pheasant opener, prime duck/goose hunting, etc and any earlier than that is way too early for an ice show.

Yes, by November 10th, the rut is on its way out and "prime time" is over. There's a forum down below if you want to argue the rut times.

"Ruts pretty much over"

Over by November 10th?

Ruts pretty much over, doesn't fall on opening of gun hunting, bridges that frustrating in-between stage of open water and ice fishing for northern WI, I'd say it's a perfect weekend. Any later and it takes away from ice time and any earlier you're middle of the rut.

If you're expecting a replacement for the Milwaukee show, yeah not worth your time. I'm excited to get some deals on EuroTackle personally.  

Not a good weekend for a show in WI!

Three weeks out and they haven't confirmed vendors yet? Long drive to look at St Croix rods.

I do applaud their effort and hope it works out in the future.

I have a dude's weekend planned for Musky up by me that weekend, we were wondering what we'd do if the weather was too bad to get out. Boom, problem solved. Park Falls is 1.5hrs from me.

Thanks for the heads up.