For the first time ever, St. Croix is opening its Wisconsin factory to public tours. The tours begin in June 2016 and will take place year-round, giving anglers a look behind the scenes at one of the fishing industry’s biggest operations.
The new experience will take visitors on a 90-minute guided tour of the Park Falls, Wisconsin, factory. Groups will see everything that goes into making the various saltwater, freshwater, fly fishing, and ice fishing rods that St. Croix produces.
“They get a chance to see truly U.S.-made, handcrafted rods through literally every step of the process,” said Jesse Simpkins of St. Croix. “We actually build the blanks; this is from the starting material, all the way through winding on the guides and putting the flex coat on it, to bagging them and shipping them out. They are handcrafted right here in this building.”
The factory is open to visitors Monday through Friday from June 1 until September 30, with tours beginning at 10 a.m. each day. From October 1 to April 30 the tours run Monday/Wednesday/Friday at 10 a.m. The factory is closed to tours on major holidays.
The tours are free to the public but must be scheduled ahead of time (before 3 p.m. the day before arrival, at the latest). Only ten attendees may take part per day, with a group minimum of four.
“It’s a really intimate view because we only take ten people a day,” Simpkins said. “It’s one person taking them through the entire process from materials all the way through our finishing.”
Exceptions will be made if, say, a family of four shows up but eight visitors are already present, and groups like the Boy Scouts, field trips, and other organizations can always arrange for special tours. These larger tours would be split into separate groups and staggered through the factory.
“It’s one thing to go somewhere and see where history is made. Quite another to see where the future is made. — St. Croix web site”
St. Croix has been in production since 1948, producing a wide range of fishing rods in conventional and fly fishing configurations. While the media has been invited at various times to see the factory, the new tours will allow the public at large to see what’s went into making St. Croix a powerhouse in the industry for more than half a century.
“Our product is unique in that it truly is an American-made, handcrafted rod made right here from tip to butt section,” Simpkins said. “The rod is the true, tangible connection between the fish and your hand. You don’t feel the line. That’s a really personal experience — those memories, those thoughts, that connection — and that starts with the manufacture of the rod and how we do it.”
In addition to the factory itself, the Park Falls location features the company’s factory store, where visitors can pick up the same kinds of tackle they saw being made in the factory proper.
The Park Falls factory is located on Highway 13, just north of Highway 70 between the towns of Fifield and Butternut. For more information and to schedule your factory visit, email factorytours@stcroixrods.com, call (800) 826-7042, or visit the St. Croix web site today.