XTREME STORIES: "It's Like the Fish is in Your Hand"

Big Bass Boss, Joe Balog, on the new St. Croix Legend® Xtreme

Park Falls, WI – How does one describe the indescribable? Here's what Florida big-bass angler Joe Balog says about his initial experiences with the all-new Legend® Xtreme – St. Croix's most-sensitive rod series ever:

"The first time I used the rod, I was in a river environment fishing a plastic worm around some fairly deep mussel beds. The wind was blowing 20 or 30 MPH left to right and the current was coming right to left. I'm throwing this way and my line is blowing the other way. Everything is wrong, and yet I get a strike at the end of the cast and it's just, THONK! It was a beautiful 3-4-pound fish. I throw back in and it's another, and another. Even in the situations and environments where you normally would have no feel at all, these new Legend Xtreme rods have all the feel in the world. It reminded me of the first time I ever used braided line... no stretch... I just couldn't believe what I felt... it's just connected. Same thing with the new Xtreme; you're connected right to the fish. It's like the fish hit five feet from the boat and he's in your hand. It's unbelievable; a ton of feel and a ton of sensitivity. In long-casting applications, fishing offshore structure, fishing deep water, fishing in the wind... these are places where every little sensitive feeling is important to me. I'm pulling a worm on the bottom and it's sand... sand... sand... and then there's one little shell, one little stick; I feel the lure totally connected to my hand and right then a fish grabs it. For me, it's not so much when I'm pitching something up real close to cover, or a topwater... when you can't miss it. It's for when I'm searching around – basically with my eyes closed – looking for fish on structure in difficult conditions. That's when these new Legend Xtreme's are imperative."

Meet the New Legend Xtreme Models

Designed and handcrafted for extreme sensitivity in Park Falls, USA, the new Legend® Xtreme blends St. Croix's highest-grade materials and proprietary technologies with a carbon fiber Daiwa AGSTM guide train and an all-new Gen2 Xtreme-Skin handle. The series includes seven rods — four new casting models and three new spinning models – and will be available for purchase online at stcroixrods.com/collections/rod-shopper and at participating St. Croix dealers beginning Friday, March 6 – the day of its official launch at the 2020 Bassmaster Classic.