Good Fly Fishing for Trout and Bass is Easy to Find
Park Falls, WI – Fueled by an influx of quality, affordable gear and our society's growing love affair with all manner of low-impact eco-recreation, fly fishing has enjoyed tremendous growth in recent years. No doubt, the sport's expansion into warmwater realms has helped expand its popularity, too. Once a game reserved almost exclusively for cold waters and trout, fly fishing is now widely employed to target almost any gamefish that swims, including two of America's most popular freshwater species, the abundant largemouth and smallmouth bass. Not only is fly fishing for bass loads of fun, sometimes it's the best way to catch them – especially on highly pressured waters. Bass anglers are learning highly effective fly fishing presentations that simply cannot be replicated with traditional casting or spinning tackle. Given the wide distribution of both trout and bass fishing opportunities today, good fly fishing isn't hard to find. Affordable, versatile and smooth-casting fly rods designed for a myriad of trout and bass fishing applications and techniques shouldn't be either. That's the inspiration behind St. Croix's Mojo Trout and Mojo Bass series of fly rods.
St. Croix Mojo Trout Fly Rods
The St. Croix Mojo Trout Series consists of 11 purposeful two- and four-piece models ranging from 6'0" and 9'0" in length and covering the all-important 2-7 trout-fishing line weights. The result is a full quiver of premium, high-modulus SCIII graphite fly rods to cover popular trout-specific fly fishing applications, offered at angler-friendly prices.
"I love the way these rods load so effortlessly… their smooth, accessible power," says Jen Ripple, Owner and Editor-In-Chief of DUN Magazine." I can make a variety of casts and presentations with Mojo Trout and fight a fish on light tippet without being worried that the slightest move will break them off."
Ripple, a renowned fly fishing speaker, teacher and conservation advocate travels to fly fish worldwide, but makes her home in Dover, Tennessee, where she plies the big-bass waters of Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley, as well as the intimate and wild trout streams of the Great Smoky Mountains.
"I love the 8' 4-wt Mojo Trout (MT804.4) for those small mountain streams," she says. "It's my go-to in the Smokies because of its versatility, and the moss green metallic color blends perfectly in small stream settings. Stealth is important. There's a lot of tiny pocket water which often requires very little line out… close-quarters casting with short, high-stick drifts. But then sometimes I need to boom a very long cast upstream around a boulder. The moderate-fast action loads easily without a bunch of extra false casting that can spook fish," continues Ripple, who also has good things to say about Mojo Trout's accuracy.
"It's like an extension of your arm… where you put the tip is where the fly lands, and that's something you can't say about every fly rod – especially one at this price. All these rods have a really great feel and good accuracy, but the 8' 4-wt does exactly what I need a rod to do in the Smokies. It's a beast with a floating line, long ten-foot leader and a small dry fly."
A large part of Ripple's day-to-day work includes demystifying fly fishing and helping remove the barriers – both real and perceived – that serve to limit participation, especially by women, who represent one of the fastest-growing segments of not just fly fishing, but all types of fishing.
"A fly rod should be judged by how it performs, not by its price tag," says Ripple. "St. Croix Mojo Trout are beautifully built rods offered at prices that make them accessible to almost anyone, and from a company you can trust. It doesn't get any better than that."
Mojo Trout fly rods employ premium, high-modulus SCIII carbon and slim-profile ferrules to produce moderate-fast-action rods which are both smooth-casting and accurate. The series features Kigan Master Hand 3D stripper guides with aluminum-oxide rings and black frames, plus Sea Guide® black PVD-coated snake guides for extra hardness, smooth casting and line shooting. An uplocking machined-aluminum reel seat and premium-grade cork handle assure comfortable ergonomics. Each rod comes with a cloth rod sack.
Designed in Park Falls, U.S.A., St. Croix Mojo Trout fly rods deliver an ideal combination of performance and value to fly anglers of all experience levels. Whether casting tiny dries to native brook trout on tight mountain creeks or stripping streamers for big and aggressive browns on large freestone rivers, there's Mojo Trout fly rod made for the way you fish. All models carry a 5-year warranty backed by St. Croix Superstar Service. Retail prices range from $180-$210.
St. Croix Mojo Bass Fly Rods
Engineered to handle the large, wind-resistant flies used by fly fishing bass anglers – poppers, deer-hair divers and streamers, frogs, heavy crayfish imitations and other patterns – the St. Croix Mojo Bass Fly Series includes three 7'11" two-piece fly rods rated for 7-, 8-, and 9-weight lines. These rods are equally adept at targeting both largemouth and smallmouth bass with surface and subsurface flies on floating, intermediate or sinking-tip lines. The larger two models are also excellent choices for Northern pike.
St. Croix Rod pro-staffer, Tanner Speidel, lives in Eastern Iowa, within close proximity to the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, as well as countless other productive interior waters. He spends most of his time prospecting the smaller rivers of Iowa's Northeast, which are home to prolific populations of smallmouth bass, walleye, and Northern pike.
"Northern pike are my favorite game. Sight fishing for pike in small creeks and watching them demolish the fly never gets old. Thankfully pike are very forgiving, so if your first presentation doesn't appeal to them, the second one probably will," says Speidel, who shares an equal affinity for casting topwater poppers for river smallies and largemouth bass on his area's abundant lakes and ponds. "If the rivers are flooded, I always switch gears to fishing ponds and lakes for largemouth bass. Catching big, farm-pond largemouth on surface poppers is a treat that, unfortunately, some fly anglers never get to experience."
"Fly fishing from a kayak is an art in itself. Standing, casting, managing line and maneuvering the kayak can get frustrating, but a shorter rod makes things much easier," says Speidel, who lauds the 7'11'' length of Mojo Bass Fly rods for accurate target-casting in close-quarter areas. "The shorter length is just a lot more manageable in a smaller boat and when you are fishing closer to the surface of the water. Kayak fishing is extremely stealthy, allowing you to get closer to fish and also get into extremely shallow areas. A precise cast and good kayak position can be very rewarding. Mojo Bass Fly rods just make everything easier to pull off."
Speidel gravitates to the Mojo Bass Fly 8-weight model (MBF7118.2) for the majority of his fishing. "It's my utility rod," says Speidel, who most often pairs it with a Scientific Anglers Mastery Bass Bug weight-forward floating line. "The 280-grain weight is perfect for big bass poppers and small pike flies." For pike streamer fishing, Speidel uses short fluorocarbon leaders with a short section of Rio Wire Bite tippet. "The Mojo Bass Fly 8-weight handles whatever I throw, and it rolls with the punches. All three of these rods are built to take a beating, and for the retail price of $160, one can afford to push them to the limit and put big flies right where they'll count. They've performed flawlessly for me, so I highly recommend giving them a shot."
Mojo Bass Fly rods are built tough with premium-quality SCII carbon and finished with two coats of Flex-Coat slow cure finish. Featuring a moderate-fast action that's ideal for accurate casts with heavy, wind-resistant flies at short-to-medium distances, these rods yield surprising power. The series features Kigan Master Hand 3D stripper guides with aluminum-oxide rings and black frames, plus hard chrome snake guides. An uplocking machined-aluminum reel seat, premium-grade cork handle and fighting butt work together to assure comfortable casting and fish-fighting ergonomics. Each rod comes with a cloth rod sack.
Designed in Park Falls, U.S.A., St. Croix Mojo Bass Fly rods are handcrafted to give bass and pike anglers the reliable and durable tools they need to experience more success and more fun on the water. Whether working massive deer-hair poppers through the cabbage tops, or casting heavy crayfish patterns to the bank, Mojo Bass Fly rods have bass anglers covered for a sweet retail price of just $160. All models carry a 5-year warranty backed by St. Croix Superstar Service.
