I can tell you this. I used an MX on a fish around 70 or 80 lbs. The SX and MX only have 14 or 16 lbs of drag. I had to thumb the reel to finish it off. I have other jigging reels that had alot more drag which is needed on larger BFT. I'm sure you could land a fish up to 50 lbs on a SX but it might take you longer. On a reel that size I would go for an Atlas which has 26 lbs.

 

right rod 50-60 lb fish no problem

 

As Lucky John said; we caught the Bluefins this year on Avet MX with a 360G 5'11" Diawa jigging rod. The reel handled all the tunas up to 46" on our last trip to the Chicken but it too a little longer. It was much more fun than using traditional 30's and 50's. Id say they sx can do it. Sure would be fun.

 

No Problem for schoolies - use braid. The new SX raptor is hard core. We landed 75# class fish on it last year. it holds 400 yards of 50 braid

 

i used my high speed mxl last year, 30 lb braid. on a 30 lb class rod. no problems with fish to 40 pounds.

 

Might have to thumb it, but you should have pleanty of line.

 

Sx 5.1 w 55lb dendoh got me a 42" bluefin last week on a trevala 66h. So yes. Don't know weight of a 42" fish, maybe someone can give me an idea.

 

Line capacity wouldn't be an issue, but unless you are looking at the raptor series the standard SX and MX only put out around 9 - 10lbs at strike before you lose freespool and I'd want to have a little more unless you are consistently catching sub 50 lbs fish.

 

We landed a few on an sx behind the scallop boats last week. 40-45" bluefin, no problem..

 

Avets are great reels. I have 5 sx's I use for bass fishing, they just are under gunned drag wise for larger BFT. For smaller BFT I have been using the Atlas 400 on 250 g Black Hole and for larger fish I use a Gorilla 12C and BH 350.

 

school size fish no problem I'd go with the MX if you had the choice it would give your more line capacity. But they are tough little reels, we use the HX series for our jigging reels and they are excellent we've jigged tuna upto the 200lb class with that reel. The LX would be the in between size and many a nice tuna fish have been landed with them. On any of them it's nice haveing the 2-speed to get the fish up easier.

 

SX can get it Done for sure but I would say your at the max with that reel.. I would do the JX or LX for the Schoolies..

 

I'm not the biggest fan of Avet reels, but I did land a 95lb bluefin on an older SX with 50lb braid. I had the drag cranked down so tight that there was no freespool, but the little reel held up. Notwithstanding, I wouldn't recommend it as tuna reel. It wasn't made for tuna. Lots of good reels out there that would fit the bill without breaking the bank, including other Avets.

 

Thanks guys, this season I have really downsized all my gear to make fishing more challenging. I appreciate your input.

 

I USED A LX AND GOT BFT TO 80LBS NO PROBLEM AND FUN:fighting:

 

How are you going to feel when your schoolie BFT tops 100lbs and it smokes you? If you're good with that and won't walk away wishing you had abigger set-up then great.

 

Mike, I love to fish, landing the fish is certainly the goal but, the hunt, and fight are part of the enjoyment as well. If a fish gets the best of me with lighter tackle I can live with it. I like eating fish, but most of the fish I keep are given away because in my family of 5 I'm the only fish eater. I like the satisfaction of doing iit as light as possible. There are concerns about mortality using inadequate equiptment, especially for highly migratory, regulated species and I would'nt want to waste the resource for just pure enjoyment.

" Sometimes you get to be the hammer, sometimes you have to be the nail"

 

I know guys that have used SX reels on the chunk and jig for tuna up to 80lb class. They knew what they were doing and they knew the reels were not meant for that use. If you cant spend the $ for a heavier reel (and rod) then go get 'em. Use your thumb and spool with 60-80 hollow core. be ready to change out your drag washers. if you run off once or twice a season then its hard to justify the extra $ on a setup. I for one would rather whip the hell out of 10 tuna with an overmatched setup versus kill myself (and watch my friends catching more fish) because I'm using a wet noodle and a bass reel.

 

the question was will it handle a schoolie yfin which pretty much everyone agreed it would, is it the ideal size? No, but some guys don't have the money to buy alot of reels so they have to make do with what they have. Downsizeing the reel sizes are fine as long as your going to reels that can handle braid lines and have beefier drag systems. I do think when possible it is best to use gear that is matched to most of what your catching, especailly bluefin since most will be released. It's always a good feeling when you release a fish and have a very good idea it will be fine, sometimes useing to light of tackle it just ends up killing the fish. We have went to smaller gear as most people have but they are definetly more powerfull reels with plenty of drag pressure, they're all loaded with braid with a topshot of mono in most cases we have more yds of line then when we used bigger reels with all mono. Rod wise I think is a key we have went to almost all Calstar Boomer series rods I prefer the glass over the graphite rods, we also use the short bent butts and these rods really put some pressure on a fish to help get it in faster. Reels like the Canyon 16's we've also picked up and use them for chunking their small but they are extremely powerfull, between the rods and these type reels it's much easier on the angler and the fish as well.