Daiwa Tatula or St. Croix Premier Spinning (or Screw it and get the Tatula XT)

[Smiththebat]

I’m looking to get a new spinning rod and I want it to be a TWO PIECE that I can hike/travel/kayak with but also use as my main spinning set-up. I’m looking for something ML or M that’s versatile. I’ve narrowed it down to the Tatula and the Premier. I like both for different reasons and I’m just looking for peoples pros and cons for both. 

I put the Tatula XT in brackets in the title because I can’t seem to find anyone talking about the actual hardware differences between the Tatula Proper and the XT.

There’s a few other brands/models I’m looking at so I could be swayed, BUT it has to be at Cabela’s/Bass Pro because I have gift cards.

THANKS IN ADVANCE! 

[LCG]

I picked up the Daiwa Tatula XT 7' M-F two piece spinning rod at Bass Pro back in the fall last year. It's a nice rod, very comfortable, great value. Now it was end of season and only got out one day, no catches. Casting wise it did well, but the lure rating if 1/8-3/4 is a bit off, more like 1/8-5/8, with 3/16-1/2 being the sweet spot. I had no problem feeling the lure, but again no catches. Call this an initial impression. 

 

I don't get caught up in the marketing stuff, ie HVF vs SVF. It looks good, it is comfortable, and it's a good value. 

[Smiththebat]

I seem to only find good things about both the Tatulas and Premiers but ESPECIALLY about the Tatula XT’s being that they punch above their price point! I’m wondering if it’s just the cork handles that makes the price jump up to the Tatula proper? Or is there more tech in there? 

[PBBrandon]

I haven’t fished the XTs but I have the regular Tatula rods and the Premiers.

 

With the Tatula rods you are getting a different blank, not sure if it’s better but it is nice. You also get a cork handle and FazLite guide inserts instead of Aluminum Oxide. I hear the XT rods are great and punch above the $100 price point, however, the regular Tatula rods are great and outperform their $150 dollar MSRP. Even more so now being on sale, not sure if BPS has them marked down but a lot of places do right now.

 

The Premiers are nice rods as well. They have AO guide inserts, cork handles, and are made in the USA with a great warranty if that is important to you. I’d still say the Tatula is a better overall rod, but its up to you if it’s worth sacrificing a little performance for peace of mind and a USA made product.

[MonsterZero]

I have not fished either rod, but there is no universe in which I take a St Croix over a Daiwa. Their quality control and customer service have slipped too far over the years for me to take them seriously anymore. Daiwa continues to deliver home runs at almost every turn.

[Eric 26]

I’m certainly not trying to tell you which one to buy as I have zero experience with either the Tatula or the Tatula XT and my Premier I’ve had for a long time but I purchased a St Croix panfish series rod and a Avid panfish series rod last season and I couldn’t be more pleased with the quality of both rods which were used quite a bit last season. As far as their customer service the gentleman I talked with to register the rods was friendly and extremely helpful and assured me there would be no issues if the need arose for a warranty claim which thankfully hasn’t happened yet. 

Edited Sunday at 07:22 PM by Eric 26
Added content

[Brian11719]

I have had a good experience w/ St. Croix's warranty / customer service (recently) and would recommend them. I don't own any in the avid series, but I have used the blank they have and in this case if I needed a 2-piece and it was going to be my main spinning setup and I had to get it from BPS I'd be taking a look at the Avid ASFS70MF2 for the sc3+ blank and 15 year warranty.

 

Pretty good review / rod bend on the 1 piece version of that one from Omnia here:

 

and I personally think there is a significant and noticeable difference with the blank in this rod and the sc2 blanks and to me it would be worth paying a little more for the sc3+. BPS has been running a fair amount of club member 10% off days so if you happen to be a club member you might be able to wait and save a little money when you buy it.

[MediumMouthBass]

St Croix isnt what it was, sure theres many guys on here and other places that love them. And had great experience with their rods and customer service. But theres just as many guys who St Croix burned, from rods breaking on the first cast, send in $60 or more for their "insurance" because its not a warranty. The new rod breaks too, or the reel nut spins into oblivion. Add on some of their expensive rods coming with dirt cheap guides (which i know made many walleye guys specifically upset). The general consensus now is St Croixs will either be great rods for you, or the most problematic fragile rod youll ever own.

 

Head over to reddit for the best explanations of St Croixs downfall, customer service is again 50/50. Some people get taken care of quickly and have a $0 fee for replacement, others may take weeks or longer just to get in touch with someone and get hit with the fee.

 

Havent heard much bad coming from Daiwa, except they to burned me on my 2 fishing shirts i paid for from a Tatula promo. Oh and they back their rods too and dont try to make you buy a new one because they made a mistake.

". Once the rod is received, our service technicians will inspect to identify the issue, and if it is determined to be a manufacturing defect, we will repair or replace the rod at no charge."

 

The Tatula, and Tatula XT are very good rods, and like everyone else said they punch above their price. However with the new generations out or coming out now theres some good deals on the previous gens now. I found a few XT's around $75, Tatulas $100-120 and Elites $125-40.

I plan to hopefully pick up one of each as im expanding my rod collection to start including some nicer stuff to fill some gaps.

 

[Hulkster]

St. Croix has fallen drastically since the pandemic. Quality control in the toilet, expensive rods now with cheap guides (avid walleye and panfish) etc. 

 

its a shame. 

[A-Jay]

I am Not seeing any of the problems with the newer ST Croix products mentioned here.

In fact, I recently added 9 new Avids to my rod locker.

5 casting & 4 Spinning. 

They seem pretty sweet to me.

A-Jay

 

 

[F14A-B]

Order a Tatula rod from Japan, they have 2 piece rods that are center cut and made with alconite guides.. prices run from like 118 to 129 depending.. 

I have an older 7’3” Zillion and it’s a very good rod. The Tatulas are a much better improvement over my Zillion. A two piece Tatula will soon be in my possession. 
 

Nevermind, I see you have gift cards for BPS. Anyway, good luck on finding what you want. 

[MonsterZero]

59 minutes ago, MediumMouthBass said:

St Croix isnt what it was, sure theres many guys on here and other places that love them. And had great experience with their rods and customer service. But theres just as many guys who St Croix burned, from rods breaking on the first cast, send in $60 or more for their "insurance" because its not a warranty. The new rod breaks too, or the reel nut spins into oblivion. Add on some of their expensive rods coming with dirt cheap guides (which i know made many walleye guys specifically upset). The general consensus now is St Croixs will either be great rods for you, or the most problematic fragile rod youll ever own.

 

Head over to reddit for the best explanations of St Croixs downfall, customer service is again 50/50. Some people get taken care of quickly and have a $0 fee for replacement, others may take weeks or longer just to get in touch with someone and get hit with the fee.

 

Havent heard much bad coming from Daiwa, except they to burned me on my 2 fishing shirts i paid for from a Tatula promo. Oh and they back their rods too and dont try to make you buy a new one because they made a mistake.

". Once the rod is received, our service technicians will inspect to identify the issue, and if it is determined to be a manufacturing defect, we will repair or replace the rod at no charge."

 

The Tatula, and Tatula XT are very good rods, and like everyone else said they punch above their price. However with the new generations out or coming out now theres some good deals on the previous gens now. I found a few XT's around $75, Tatulas $100-120 and Elites $125-40.

I plan to hopefully pick up one of each as im expanding my rod collection to start including some nicer stuff to fill some gaps.

 

I cannot tell you how many guys I have talked to that have had their reel seats straight up come off the rods with no recourse. I initially thought it was just a problem with the surf rods, because I was almost exclusively surf fishing for years, but when I came back to the bass world I discovered that it happens across the entire brand. Reminds me of Remington with their faulty trigger assemblies a few years back; they know there is a problem, they know what the problem is, but they actively refuse to acknowledge it or do anything about it.

[Brian11719]

I've experienced exactly one 'quality' issue with a bass-x reel seat that crapped out on me right when I put a reel on it a couple of years ago...they did take a while to get back to me on that, but DSG just refunded me for it anyway...aside from that I also broke a guide on my old mojo rod (my fault) and they got back to me right away and gave me a new / better rod for $40. Own a few rods from them at this point (victory and legend xtreme) and would respectfully disagree with the notion that their quality control is 'in the toilet' (I've had no issues with any of these rods) and would argue that most of the statements above me seem to be based on hearsay rather than actual personal experience. 

 

On another note the Tatula rods also seem fine. Haven't fished with one but have held a few in the store and they seem like they are good rods. Not sure the warranty is as good as what you would get with St. Croix but the rods themselves seemed nice. 

[MediumMouthBass]

3 hours ago, Brian11719 said:

and would argue that most of the statements above me seem to be based on hearsay rather than actual personal experience. 

I didnt personally experience cancer, i guess that means it doesnt exist!

 

5 minutes on Google shows the current state of St Croix, again its a 50/50 lottery. Some guys get some great rods without issues, others not so much.

 

Myself and many others on here though might be wrong, and they still might be great rods.

But that would mean every person on here, reddit, youtube, etc, talking about their rods breaking, and showing pictures of the new rods snapped probably broke their rods on purpose because Daiwa or Shimano slipped them a $20 bill. And the others just got together in the back room for their secret weekly meeting in an undisclosed location and came together to make up the reel seat issues rumors.

[Brian11719]

2 minutes ago, MediumMouthBass said:

I didnt personally experience cancer, i guess that means it doesnt exist!

 

Right...so flat earth ancient alien conspiracy theories aside we aren't talking about cancer here we are talking about a rod company and supposed quality issues. Have you actually experienced any of these issues personally with them? If so which rod and what happened with it?

[MediumMouthBass]

3 hours ago, Brian11719 said:

Have you actually experienced any of these issues personally with them? If so which rod and what happened with it?

I have a $275 St Croix Legend Glass sitting in a corner collecting dust, no issues because i havent used it. After reading over 100 reports of issues with St Croixs, that even they acknowledged with the reel seats spinning. I dont want to get stuck paying $60 because it breaks on the first cast, to replace it with another dumpster fire. So i listed it on marketplace in hopes one of you St Croix fanboys buys it.

 

"supposed quality issues" if you can read well enough to type a small paragraph calling me out for saying something you dont agree with than you are more than able to read the numerous pages Google has about St Croix rod issues. 

3 hours ago, Brian11719 said:

Right...so flat earth ancient alien conspiracy theories aside we aren't talking about cancer here

Are you okay?

[MonsterZero]

46 minutes ago, Brian11719 said:

I've experienced exactly one 'quality' issue with a bass-x reel seat that crapped out on me right when I put a reel on it a couple of years ago...they did take a while to get back to me on that, but DSG just refunded me for it anyway...aside from that I also broke a guide on my old mojo rod (my fault) and they got back to me right away and gave me a new / better rod for $40. Own a few rods from them at this point (victory and legend xtreme) and would respectfully disagree with the notion that their quality control is 'in the toilet' (I've had no issues with any of these rods) and would argue that most of the statements above me seem to be based on hearsay rather than actual personal experience. 

 

On another note the Tatula rods also seem fine. Haven't fished with one but have held a few in the store and they seem like they are good rods. Not sure the warranty is as good as what you would get with St. Croix but the rods themselves seemed nice. 

With all due respect, we are not talking about one or two high school kids high sticking, snapping their rods, and talking trash. We are talking about hundreds of people, across all skill and budget levels, experiencing the exact same problem with the exact same brand. That is far too much to be coincidence, and it is far more likely that you got lucky than that the rest were all unlucky in the same way.

[Hulkster]

52 minutes ago, Brian11719 said:

and would argue that most of the statements above me seem to be based on hearsay rather than actual personal experience. 

hearsay that is documented with video proof all over youtube:

 

 

 

this isn't internet BS this is real (reel?) life. 

 

[Brian11719]

10 minutes ago, MediumMouthBass said:

I have a $275 St Croix Legend Glass sitting in a corner collecting dust, no issues because i havent used it.

^

right so basically every argument that you've made and that I've seen against them so far in this entire thread is based on what others have read or heard about and not what they've actually experienced. With all due respect unless you have actually had an issue I'm not really all that interested in hearing you echo chamber the internet. I'm betting that avid is a nice rod @Smiththebat and wouldn't let some folks that seem to hate this company because they are apparently angry about what others have experienced sway you either way...also if you get really angry about this sort of thing and aspire to be a social justice keyboard warrior there might be a few better uses of your time than arguing w/ someone about a rod company on a bass fishing forum.

[12poundbass]

Agree to disagree and get back on track gentlemen!

[Eric 26]

As far as I can tell there’s a lot of “men” who feel the need to over tighten the reel seat/nut on a lot of fishing rods as this seems to be a pretty common theme in a heck of a lot of rod brands. I personally have a Abu Garcia reel that that the reel stem doesn’t like to fit into quite a few of my spinning rods but instead of over tightening I made a shim out of some scrap metal I had laying around and I know at least one of our members on here has pointed out that you can buy plastic shims for the same purpose. Don’t gorilla the reel nut.

[PBBrandon]

3 minutes ago, Eric 26 said:

As far as I can tell there’s a lot of “men” who feel the need to over tighten the reel seat/nut on a lot of fishing rods as this seems to be a pretty common theme in a heck of a lot of rod brands. I personally have a Abu Garcia reel that that the reel stem doesn’t like to fit into quite a few of my spinning rods but instead of over tightening I made a shim out of some scrap metal I had laying around and I know at least one of our members on here has pointed out that you can buy plastic shims for the same purpose. Don’t gorilla the reel nut.

This^
 

i would tighten the crap out of the reel nuts and it caused about 1/4 inch of play in the reel seat of one of my LTB rods. Still useable but there is a little gap now. Other than that I haven’t had any issues with my 7 Croix rods and the service has been great. 

[Eric 26]

58 minutes ago, MediumMouthBass said:

I have a $275 St Croix Legend Glass sitting in a corner collecting dust, no issues because i havent used it. After reading over 100 reports of issues with St Croixs, that even they acknowledged with the reel seats spinning. I dont want to get stuck paying $60 because it breaks on the first cast, to replace it with another dumpster fire. So i listed it on marketplace in hopes one of you St Croix fanboys buys it.

 

Have you sold that particular rod yet? Also is it listed on the flea market here as I may be interested. 

[wvhunt]

20 hours ago, Smiththebat said:

I’m looking to get a new spinning rod and I want it to be a TWO PIECE that I can hike/travel/kayak with but also use as my main spinning set-up. I’m looking for something ML or M that’s versatile. I’ve narrowed it down to the Tatula and the Premier. I like both for different reasons and I’m just looking for peoples pros and cons for both. 

I put the Tatula XT in brackets in the title because I can’t seem to find anyone talking about the actual hardware differences between the Tatula Proper and the XT.

There’s a few other brands/models I’m looking at so I could be swayed, BUT it has to be at Cabela’s/Bass Pro because I have gift cards.

THANKS IN ADVANCE! 

I had a couple Premiers and really liked them till I overturned a canoe on the river and lost them.  I currently have two Tatula spinning rods and really like them as well.   I think either would provide good service for you.  I'd handle them both and just pick whichever feels good to you.

[Smiththebat]

I honestly don’t have a dog in the fight but from what I’ve gathered it seems to be most of the non-American made St. Croix rods that have had quality issues. This is just a theory but it’s a trend I’ve noticed. I can’t find a lot of people complaining about their Premiers or Avids or Legends… but also maybe I’m just not looking.