Varivas Avani Sea Bass Super Sensitive Full Cast LS8 braid review - £39.98 UK price for a 200m spool, this is not a “budget” braid!

Firstly let’s get this mouthful of a braid name down to something more manageable. I am going to call this Varivas Avani Sea Bass Super Sensitive Full Cast LS8 braid “Varivas LS8” to save my typing out the full name all the time. Secondly, I lay the blame for me still trying out these higher-end braids firmly at the door of two line companies - Sufix and Varivas. Not for one second am I here to claim in any way at all that spending way more than say £20 on a one-fill spool of braid has or is going to catch me any more bass, but then I drive an epic Berlingo and one has to ask the question whether driving a fridge like this makes me that bit more of a real man? Quite possibly not, but there is always the possiblity……………

Never have we had it so good with cheaper but very much proper braids, and because I haven’t fished with the Daiwa J-Braid for a long time now my top three “budget” braids continue to be Sufix 832, Sufix X8, and SpiderWire Stealth Smooth 8 (you can find all the details and links to my reviews of braids and leader materials here on my website by the way). I have fished a hell of a lot with a bunch of sub-£20 braids and there is a part of me that says why spend any more these days, but last year I started fishing with the new Sufix 131 braid and to be honest it threw a spanner in the works with how much I love this stuff. Damn right it’s not cheap, but I have three different spinning reels/spools loaded up with it now and I can’t get enough of the stuff. I have filled a Penn Slammer III 3500 reel up with #0.8/18lb Sufix 131 and it has become my surf fishing braid of choice with how incredibly well it casts and seems to cut through wind and waves that bit better and so on.

And on my beloved little Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG spinning reel (two years fishing with it review here) I have been fishing with this not remotely cheap but also simply outstanding Varivas LS8 braid in PE#1/18.4lb “Average”. Go back through this blog and you will notice that I have had a serious thing for Varivas braids for a long time now. I don’t need to go over the fact that the grey coloured and still reassuringly expensive Varivas Avani Sea Bass Max Power PE was the first 8-strand braid I ever fished with, but the simple fact is that I trust Varivas and Sufix braids above all others, and at the end of the day my trust in these mainlines is what matters the most to me when it’s my connection to lure and fish.

So this 200m spool of Varivas LS8 has been on my Twin Power now since March of this year. I happened to be using this reel and mainline when I landed my best bass of the year so far back in May I think it was which of course helps with the whole trust in my gear thing, and over the last seven or eight months I have ended up fishing with this Varivas LS8 a lot. I kinda like how it comes on a 200m spool because that means I will be getting at more of the good stuff when the time comes to reverse it, but to be perfectly honest the line LS8 has performed so flawlessly and it’s also holding its colour very well that I see no reason for reversing the line yet.

You would expect no line management issues when spending this kind of money on a mainline and then putting it on such a good reel as the Shimano Twin Power XD C3000HG, and that is exactly what has happened - not a single hint of a wind-knot or anything daft like that. I don’t tie FG knots between mainlines and leaders and then do any kind of (flawed) testing of them via weigh-scales and so on, but for the life of me I can’t break this Varivas LS8 tied via the FG knot to a fluoro leader I might use when I wrap both ends around my hand and try to pull for a break. It’s as you would expect - bloody strong, and so it should be for the price.

I like the colour, I like the lovely feel of the line (very smooth, feels more robust than one of those uber-smooth “silky” braids), I trust Varivas lines, and as much as I know there are plenty of good braids out there for a lot less money, there is something undefinable about my two current favourite higher-end braids when they fly off the reel. This Varivas LS8 is one hell of a good braid and it’s easily up there with the few best braids I have ever fished with. It’s not a cheap line, but braids like these just last and last and you should get a hell of a lot of serious fishing time out of them. I know that on this blog I have regularly questioned whether it’s worth buying these more expensive braids anymore these days, but then I fish with them for long periods and I can’t help myself………...

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