St. Croix Avid Inshore Spinning Rods Review

Got destroyed by this big goliath. Probably need a rope and 200lb leader to literally pull them off the wrecks.

We just spent a month in south Florida fishing both in shore and off shore and got a chance to really put these rods to the test. We caught so many different kinds of fish…giant snook, grouper, snapper, triple tail, bull sharks, pompano, speckled trout, redfish, cobia, and tarpon. We also experienced incredible defeat when we hooked up with giant goliath grouper only to get “rocked” by them.

To be honest, we bought two 7’6” medium spinning rods and two 7’6” MH spinning rods. Loved these rods for most of the fishing we did. They did great casting swimbaits for inshore and off shore snook. Loved the extra length of rod to help with keeping fish pinned. The longer rods seemed to absorb the big head shakes from grouper, snapper, snook, and tarpon. The rods are a dream to fish with; very light and responsive.

Both the medium and the medium heavy were tough enough to pull decent size red grouper and gags off the bottom. But in all honesty, we didn’t catch any real giant reds or gags. Next time we head south, I plan to buy a couple 7’ H and a couple 7’6” heavy’s. We also only had 3000 sized spinning reels. I fully planned on fishing more inshore and didn’t realize that we would fish offshore as much as we did.

The best thing about the 7’6” m and mh paired with a 3000 size reel is that I think they will make the perfect set up for jigging lake trout on Lake George in New York and in Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan.

Bottom line: These are high end awesome rods for most of what you’re going to find inshore and much of what you’re going to fish for off shore. There is a time and a place for the heavy and next time we go to Florida we’ll have a couple more rods added to our arsenal.