Sea Guide Components and the St. Croix Problems

[Hulkster]

So we know that post pandemic, many rod manufacturers like St. Croix and Loomis have switched from Fuji components to Sea Guide components.



St. Croix uses SG components (reel seat) and guides on both their Victory and Bass X lines.



Loomis uses SG guides on their GCX line (but still uses Fuji reel seats)



if you look on Social media the Bass X rods from St. Croix are falling apart at the reel seat and so are some Victory models.



Facebook and reddit is full of posts.



do you think manufactures will go back to using Fuji components?



I'm at the point now seeing all this that I don't want to buy a rod that doesn't have Fuji components anymore.

[Slazmo]

Shimano years ago went to Sea Guides - god what awful and woeful quality they were...

When the rods only cost a handful of dollars to manufacture and they charged like crazy for them - the least they could've used was Fuji O Ring's and a lower spec Fuji Seat.

However Fuji isn't without its own flaws in its frame materials of late.

[DirtyD64]

I am one of the few on here that uses cheaper rods; mostly $200 range Abu's and Lew's. A lot of the new rods I have gotten have been due to guide problems on older versions. The unbranded guides that the brands I mentioned have issues, many times. They are very helpful to replace and warranty your rod, but the guides are a weak point. This being said, I recently received a Lew's rod last year that is equipped with SeaGuide RA guides. It has held up great so far. I have really put it through the paces hard, mainly with 15lb fluorocarbon, but lighter and heavier fluorocarbon too.

I am not sure if the RA guides are their better or lower end model. I have had good luck with Fuji guides (cheaper ones) on lower priced TFO rods. They have handled literally thousands of fish using lighter braid (6lb-10lb) and a 7lb-10lb fluorocarbon leader.

[dragon1]

A SeaGuide reel seat is the main reason I am still vacillating on one of these new Okuma X series rods.

https://www.tacklewarehouse.com/Okuma_X ... OKXCR.html

[Canga-]

it was brought to my attention today on a FB group that they are using sea guide silicon nitride guides instead of fuji titanium torzites on the legend elite and legend x rods, while the prices also went up. i usually love st croix rods, but this is a major downgrade IMO, will definitely not be buying a legend elite or legend x again, if they really wanted to save some money at least give us fuji SiC (stainless or titanium!). very disappointing.

[HobeyBaker]

it was brought to my attention today on a FB group that they are using sea guide silicon nitride guides instead of fuji titanium torzites on the legend elite and legend x rods, while the prices also went up. i usually love st croix rods, but this is a major downgrade IMO, will definitely not be buying a legend elite or legend x again, if they really wanted to save some money at least give us fuji SiC (stainless or titanium!). very disappointing.

I’m not sure how they can warranty a rod with torzite guides and replace it with a rod with cheap Sea Guides. It’s a completely different rod, in my opinion.

[Hulkster]

agreed. I would be pissed if something happened and I sent them a broken LE with basically the highest end guides and the replacement rod came back with Seaguide crap

[setsail26]

Torzite is silicon nitride. G Loomis used to use a lot of Pac Bay components, and in my opinion Sea Guide stuff is higher quality than Pac Bay. I'd call Fuji Daiwa or Shimano and Sea Guide Doyo. Still good stuff, but more on the copied and derivative side.

[Hulkster]

yes Loomis used Pac Bay way back in the day but if I recall that was the mid 90s?
its been Fuji ever since that time.
until now with the SeaGuides on some of the GCX lines.