Varivas Avani Sea Bass Si-X BraidX8 review - £44.99 for a 150m spool (ouch!)

Let’s get two things out of the way here before we start. Firstly, you categorically do not need to spend £44.99 on a 150m spool of braid to be able to fish with a seriously good mainline these days, and secondly, if the sneaky little bastard that is the Sufix 131 braid hadn’t come along then I would not be spending more than £20 on a spool of braid - trying out different braids aside - because there are plenty of seriously good mainlines for our lure fishing that come in under that £20 mark for a roughly 150m or 150yd spool. It would be a whole lot cheaper for me if the newish Sufix 131 braid wasn’t lasting and lasting and performing so perfectly for me, and if this sneaky so and so which seriously does it for me hadn’t appeared on my radar then I’d be lure fishing all the time with the ridiculously strong Sufix 832 or the slightly thinner and more modern Sufix X8. I haven’t fished with the equivalent priced Shimano braids or the newer Daiwa J-Braid, but I see no reason why they would not be good lines as well…………

Anyway, what we are talking about here is an expensive spool of braid - the brand new Varivas Avani Sea Bass Si-X BraidX8 which has just started to appear in the UK. I have been fishing with this white braid in the #PE1/Max 21lb version, and it’s been on this stunning little Shimano Stradic 2500HG-FL spinning reel which I reviewed the other day here. I keep coming back to the not needing to spend nearly as much money on braids these days, but the simple fact is that more expensive braids do exist, and some anglers like fishing with them and are prepared to spend the money. I am not going to try and justify £44.99 for a 150m spool of braid but I also can’t criticise its existence and price when I myself can’t tear myself away from this shyster Sufix 131 braid which is on my Penn Slammer III 3500, my amazing little Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG, and also a Penn Spinfisher VI 3500. If you don’t get wind knots and you don’t get unlucky with a really bad breakoff way down the braid then with any of these lines I have mentioned so far I’d expect to get at least a year out of one spool of braid. I blogged a while back about then reversing braids after a lot of use - check here.

So £44.99 is still a hell of a lot of money for one fill of braid, but if that one fill does you at least a year? A bit easier to live with perhaps, and especially when I can hand on heart say that this Varivas Avani Sea Bass Si-X BraidX is absolutely bloody lovely to fish with. It should be mind you, and whilst I can’t give you any scientific reasons why I think this is a hell of a good mainline, I have fished with enough braids over some years now to know when a braid is coming off a spinning reel particularly well on the cast, and then how well it knots via the FG knot to a leader. I have no idea how well other knots might or might not work with this particular braid by the way, because I see no point in using any other leader knot than the FG. I also have no way of telling whether PE numbers of quoted diameters and/or breaking strains are remotely accurate, but in my fingers this Varivas Avani Sea Bass Si-X BraidX in the #PE1/Max 21lb version I have been thrashing for a while now feels almost scarily thin - but it also feels really tough and I can’t find anything about it which doesn’t float my boat.

I note though that a very good Irish bass angler left a comment the other day when I first mentioned this new Varivas braid, and he said: “I'm using 1.5 PE SI-X Henry since it came out and i'm noticing lots of breaks in the fibers on the last few meters of the line, i'm not sure to be honest if this really does make the line any weaker (it is 30lb line after all).” When I read this I went and had a very close look and a feel of those last few meters of line to my 20lb Varivas Fluorocarbon Shock Leader which I haven’t changed for a fair while now. I can’t find a single fibre out of place and to be honest my braid feels as good as new, but this lad who left the comment knows his fishing and his braids and I wanted you to be aware of what he said.

I can’t really say much more about this Varivas Avani Sea Bass Si-X BraidX other than it’s not cheap but I am seriously liking it and I think it’s an outstanding mainline. As much as I am perfectly happy with a white braid, I’d also love it if this braid was in a bright green or yellow or orange or something like that, but that is a purely personal thing and it won’t catch me any more fish! In my manly fingers this Varivas Avani Sea Bass Si-X BraidX feels almost like Sufix 131 and Sufix 832 got together and had a very modern baby - it feels incredibly thin, it knots perfectly for me, I have pulled lures out of a few snags, and this braid feels incredibly strong. If money were no object and I had an urge to drop some serious cash on a spool of braid, then this Varivas Avani Sea Bass Si-X BraidX would be right up there for me with Sufix 131.

I wanted to say thank you for all your comments and interaction on my blog post from Monday of this week. For various reasons that post seems to have grown a bit of a life of its own, and after a few days of your comments coming in I must admit to a growing sense of shock, disbelief, despair, and outrage. I had a very interesting phone call with somebody I have known for many years now and who I trust and respect immensely, and whilst I can’t yet talk about some of the facts and figures he was telling me about last night, I will be able to soon - and it’s almost unbelievable. Excuse my language here but I am absolutely f$%&£@g disgusted. Something has to be done and we will only have ourselves to blame if we sit around and do nothing. I have travelled extensively in Africa where in some countries corruption is often perfectly visible and almost a given, but believe you me that corruption is alive and well here in the UK when it comes to various fisheries related stuff. I will blog about this in due course, but in the meantime, you all have a good weekend and please stay safe and well……………

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