WOW! The quest for perfection. You would think something as simple as slowing down a fish hell bent on freedom over a frying pan would be easy. NOT!

Well, I have read all of your posts from Hawaii to Germany, from salmon to giant bluefin tuna, from jerky to super smooth and from grease or no grease.

The bottom line is, no matter how much someone listens, researches, reads or peers into the crystal ball, they are always going to follow the method that they feel either makes the most sense or that which makes them more confident in their own ways.

Well, here is one more post that I hope will settle down this flurry of varied self determined opinions weather to grease or not to grease.

Today, May 14th was dedicated to full-on total R&D (grease/no grease) day at Avet. Sarkis, Harry, Dave Rocchi and Ben Frazier spent the day burning a lot of gas, burning a lot of drag washers and tearing down and scrutinize a lot of reels.

They obviously needed to standardize their testing so 100 yard monofilament topshots were designated as the line of choice since they had between 100 and 110 yards for their flight path. That length would cover most topshots with spectra backing and at the same time maintain consistency of the increase in line pressure as the line diameter decreased and the spool rotation increased.

Both single and twin drag reels were tested. Single drag reels were tested at full and twin drag reels were tested at strike (Dave really wasn’t up for what you called “asphalt skiing”). Line size was standardized to 40lb for single disk and 130lb for twin disk. Speed varied from 25 to 30 MPH at 75 yards depending on how close the looke lou’s got. Between the V-10 Dodge truck and the Hummer, speed was not nearly as critical as breaking.

While maintaining a common stance, they used what they thought was the best drag grease available and testing was performed immediately after the line was retrieved back on the reel with a calibrated scale.

Results are as follows:

v Single drag reels (dry drags): After 1st test = 100% of original drag, 2nd test followed immediately = 105% of original drag and immediately followed by 3rd test which also yealded 105% of original drag setting.
Teardown exposed slight yellow/bluish tinting of drag plate, but very little visual wear of carbon fiber drag.

v Single drag reels (greased drags after setting drag with excessive grease wiped off): Prior to load testing, the wet drag maintained same drag pressure as the dry drag on straight short pull. 1st (high speed) tests showed an average of 6 - 8% reduction from original drag setting. 2nd tests resulted in 10 to 13% reduction from original setting and 3rd tests stayed around the same.
Teardown also exposed yellow/bluish tinting of drag plate. Also appeared that as heat built up grease would become thinner and the centrifugal force would send (oil at this point) the grease to the outer diameter of the spool. After the third test, there appeared to be very little grease left on the drag. Possibly absorbed into the drag material but not visible at this point.

v Conclusion at this point: Single drags will be fine with smaller fish that won’t put the reel to the big test by pulling a lot of drag and building up a lot of heat. When the heat starts to build up, it appears as though the drag effectiveness is compromised.

v After the 3rd test, they allowed the reel to cool off for 3 minutes and retested with a short pull test. The drags came back to within approximately 5% of the original setting, and after 10 minutes of cool off, the drags came back to 100% of the original setting.

v Twin drag testing was performed with a Pro EXW50/2 loaded with 130lb mono over spectra. The Spectra was never exposed during any of the tests. All testing (both greased and non-greased) was with a drag setting of 35lbs at strike.

v First and second dry tests resulted in drag increasing to 37lbs. After the second test, those drags were getting very hot and we decided to take it apart cool it down and grease em up, wiping off any excess.

v Results from the 1st test equated to the same as the dry test showing an increase of 2 lbs of drag (37lbs).

v Results from the 2nd test showed a decrease of 3.5 lbs down to 33.5 lbs of drag immediately after the line was retrieved.

v The reel was disassembled and showed just slight discoloration of the plate and once again small amount grease built up on inside of side plate. Also there was very little sign of any grease on washers themselves.

v They figured it was getting late but had time for one more test, so the drag washers went to the sink and were soaked with water and reassembled.
Once again the drags were set at 35lbs (strike) and off went the Hummer. This was somewhat non-conclusive since the drags were still warm, but not hot and the water absorbed into the drag washers pretty quickly. As a result of the wet/no so wet drag, there was only a loss of .5lbs down to 34.5lbs of drag.

v Conclusion at this point: Twin drags with no grease stayed fairly consistent and even increased slightly when initially heated up (or worn in).
With grease applied, the drags also increased up to 37lbs but when really heated up the drags started to loose a little moving down to 33.5lbs.

Your call at this point depending what your fishing for. Granders from Hawaii to Portugal that are going to do everything possible to melt you and your drags while strapped in and strapped down using monster drag settings (35-70) or stand-up on the rail dealing with a little less drag (30 – 45) and YFTs, BFTs etc. that hopefully will settle down and not get too stupid with you.

Avet’s stance at this point: They are going to hold on to their original direction of NO grease due to inconsistencies resulting from varying temperatures, having to reapply grease periodically, grease having a tendency of attracting inherent elements such as salt, carbon dust etc.

One very important factor to take into consideration is that Avet is building high quality reels for people fishing all over the world for every type of application be it extreme or simple day of enjoyment on the water type of fishing. Their thought process is to keep them simple, affordable, and strong while maintaining a high level of quality and customer satisfaction. Consistency and quality control are two of the most challenging facets of any major reel manufacturer. As the age old adage goes, “you can make everyone happy some of the time and you can make some of the people happy all of the time, but you can’t make everyone happy all of the time”. This is one company that I know that will keep trying their best to make everyone happy.
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Any questions or comments reguarding Avet Reels please contact me rickozaki@sbcglobal.net

I have re-read this post several times and this is the conclusion I have come to...

It is now perfectly clear that Avets stance is no grease. However, I now believe that the position that Avet has taken is based on the fact that they want their drags to have 100% drag pressure all the time. What this tells me is that the engineers at Avet as so concerned with this issue, that they are blind to the fact that loosing drag is not, and never has been, an issue for people who grease their drags.

People that grease their drags are concerned about corrosion, smoothness, durability, and "start up." It seems to me that Avet completely missed this point when doing this write-up. It is even more apparent in the response from Rick's response to my post. After everything I said in my post, Rick's response is, "the only grease to use is Cal's Grease." What about all the other stuff I talked about? What is your stance on those issues?

So, should I just forget about this post and go about my business? Should I stop trying to get a response from Avet regarding the issues I have questions about and just grease my drags and mind my own business? Maybe. But maybe Avet should listen to their customers real concerns and do their testing on what matters to real world fisherman.

I am sorry that I sound like I might be attacking Avet in this post but I'm not. It's just apparent to me that Avet is not on the right track with their testing. If they listened a little better, they might understand that the concerns people have with grease or no grease has NOTHING to do with the amount of drag the reel has after it warms up a little bit. I love your reels. If you look at my old post, every suggestion I make to people about reels is a suggestion to get some kind of Avet. But, I would really like to see Avet make an effort to address the issues that really matter to fisherman and not sweep them under the rug like Rick has already done to my first post.

many of you know that a greased carbon fiber drag has been my standard for many years. i am happy to say that this drag system is now used in the flagship two speed reels of penn, shimano, daiwa, accurate, and okuma. avet is last company that does not. i find that odd, but not odd enough to warrant a review of my current procedures. clearly in the minority, avet's stance troubles me little. for those of you that wish to abide by avet's policies, i wish you luck. for those of you that wish to grease your drag washers, i welcome you to the dark side.......

Is that from Alan Tani? If so, I missed it after spending too many wonderful hours on his site.

Lever on full does not equal full drag at least not with the Avets

I like this way of being able to preselect you max drag although you have to be sure to set it right for your target species.

I have mine set to about 70% to 80% of the drag which equates to roughly 14lb to 16lb of drag. That is plenty for most applications.

The numbers don't mean a thing on the reel! "IF" If Marry had balls she will be.....pfff! Forgive me!

Listen, you want to set the drag tight enough that it tires out the fish when you fight it, but not so tight that the line breaks under stress. You set your drag to 25% of the breaking strength of the line you are using. What good would it do for you if you set it on full to have that 100lb poon break you off. I had a 50-60lb poon on & running in one tunnel out the other in key west. That line didn't give up not because I had 60lb mono...I had 15lb mono & the drag was tight enough to fight it, yet light enough so it wont break off. You wanted to slip before the line breaks...That's the idea....

1.Assemble your rod and attach the reel. Thread the line through all the guides from the butt to the tip top.
2.Tie the line to the hook of the scale.
3.Hold the rod at a 45° angle.
4.Pull down on the scale. Take a reading on the scale the moment the drag begins to slip.

One thing I noticed on mine was you could use the 1-12 knob as a type of cast control. Set high enough, it put a wee bit of drag on the spool in free. Thought is was a feature I didn't know I had