Mitchell Avocast 7000FS Black Edition Reels

The Mitchell Avocast 7000FS big pit reel is a stylish brute that laughs in the face of crashing whitecaps, whipping across the surface of even the meanest pit. It’s a lightweight, high-spec winch, that legendary reel manufacturer, Mitchell (remember the classic Mitchell 300?), has brought in at a staggeringly cheap price point. We genuinely don’t know how they’ve done it, but you’ll be glad they have when you give the handles a crank and feel the smoothness that the 4+1 ball-bearing system allows. If you’re in the market for some big pit workhorses, with that little bit of understated glamour, then you’ll want to know more…

The big five

1. Big-Pit Free-Spool
There’s no need to crank the spool cap a dozen times to tighten into a fish with these reels. Instead, they feature a handy lever towards the back of the body, which you simply flip to engage free-spool, and which automatically clicks over, defaulting to your preset drag when you crank into a fish. The process of switching between free-spool and drag couldn’t be slicker, which is of paramount importance when that fish is roaring off with the bait!

The Mitchell Avocast 7000FS big pit reel that laughs in the face of even the meanest pit

2. One-touch folding handle
Mitchell has certainly been watching the UK carp scene closely. Having noted the fashion for super-tight set-ups with folded reel handles, they’ve engineered a one-touch, rapid-fold handle for the Avocast range. Of course, fashion aside, it’s much more practical than winding the handle backwards a number of times to fold it down when packing the rods away. Form and function have been perfectly blended here, to give you a feature that works, and helps you to look good!

3. Subtle styling
Nobody wants a garish, over-branded reel, right? Well, thankfully, Mitchell recognised that immutable fact too when styling their reels. That’s why the Avocast Black Editions are so fashionably understated. The subtle, tone-on-tone graphics and matt-black finish will see you stand out… but in all the right ways. Rather than bolt on some soulless plastic or rubber handle, Mitchell accessorised their winches with beautiful wooden knobs, which balance the black look perfectly.

4. Slow oscillation
If it’s distance casting that you crave, then line lay is king. It can literally make the difference between hitting the spot, and dropping frustratingly short. To achieve perfect line lay for the Avocasts, Mitchell slowed the oscillation of these reel right down. How does that help? Well, slower oscillation allows the reel to lay down line in a much neater fashion, ultimately allowing the line to flow off the spool with much less resistance.

5. Value!
So, we said the Avocast 7000FS represented great value for money, right? So how does £89.99 per reel sound? Pretty bloody impressive, we’re sure you’ll agree. A quick search on-line found quite a few retailers offering buy two, get one free deals too, so you literally can change your sorry old winches for a beautiful new set, for waaaaay less than the price of a mid-range reel from one of the Japanese giants.

“GIMME”: £89.99 (look out for some hot deals online!); mitchellfishing.com