What started as a photoshopped rumor two years ago has finally turned into reality. After announcing the Star Drag series in March, Avet has finally been able to deliver on their promises. The new star drags are a great addition to their existing lineup, giving people more options for great casting and bottom fishing reels. The ease and convenience of star drags make them great for all kinds of applications, and it broadens the scope of what you can have in your arsenal from Avet.
As far as fit and finish goes, these reels feature cues from the G2 series along with some improvements making them quite appealing. All of the reels feature a spool tensioner which will let you adjust the resistance or spacing of the spool. If you’re doing a lot of casting, I’d highly recommend going with one of the MC models which gives you their upgraded magnetic cast control. When dialed in correctly, it will improve all of your casts even if you’ve got a well trained thumb. It works with continuous magnetic resistance during a cast as opposed to abrupt friction from your thumb which will slow the spool and give you good control, but will inhibit your casting distance. This is why every single reel meant for long casting applications will come with a magnetic cast control system of some kind.
These reels have a very smooth gear lever, there is no resistance when getting the reel back into free spool even with a lot of weight on the other end which is a big complaint on some other star drags out there since it makes bottom fishing more tedious. Each reel, conservatively, gets around 20 lbs of drag which will let you use them for many different applications which require higher drag pressures. Most will be happy to know that these will come with an anti-reverse bearing and silent dawg system Avet is known for which will remove the back play in the handle while maintaining the rugged dependability that Avet is known for.
The MXL Star features the same spool size as their lever drag MXL. Meaning you’ll get around 600 yards of 50lb braid filling it, which gives you plenty of line capacity for flylining live bait to the tuna, as well as casting smaller surface irons with a longer monofilament topshot. The MXL size doesn’t weight any more than their lever drag variant, which is especially impressive giving it puts out much more drag.
