Mito Material Solutions announces a product line expansion by core sporting customer St. Croix Fly (Park Falls, Wis., U.S.). In October 2023, Mito shared how the fly fishing rod company incorporated its functionalized graphene into the composite rods to enable faster recovery, increase torsional rigidity, and improve strength-to-weight ratios.

St. Croix’s Technica Series rods were conceived and delivered to give anglers “the upper hand in the trickiest of trout-fishing situations.” Its responsive, moderate action, paired with the use of carbon fiber and Mito’s graphene technology, adds to the line’s speed, endless loop stability, and accuracy.

“The best way to describe Technica’s action is balanced,” says Jason Brunner, St. Croix VP of operations and R&D. “Simply put, a softer lower end and mid-section stores energy and produces a smooth-loading, soulful in-hand feel while helping the caster make efficient mends and protect light tippets and small flies. Higher up on the second and tip sections, the taper maintains the perfect amount of stiffness for picking up long lengths of line when recasting, sniper hook sets on long, downstream dry fly feeds, and fast tip recovery for turning over long leaders in the wind.

“We learned a lot about the rod-performance attributes of Mito’s graphene with the 3-year development of Evos, released in 2023,” Brunner continues. “So, when we began the job of designing Technica, we knew we could bend the rules of traditional moderate-action design.”

When viewed on a deflection board, Technica appears to be a soft rod. However, Mito’s graphene is said to greatly impact how the rod casts. “The addition of functionalized graphene to our established SCVI, SCIV, and SCII carbon fiber matrix increases rod recovery by 20%,” Brunner says. “The benefit is a stable loop with maximum line speed, while the overall result is a blank that possesses all the feel, finesse, and tippet protection of a moderate-flexing rod, with the speed and power of a medium-fast action.”

After the success of St. Croix’s product expansion, Mito’s R&D team realized that offering a prepreg option could be helpful for other customers. Mito is currently exploring working with partners to offer prepreg already infused with E-Go.