REINVENTING THE REEL CHATSWORTH COMPANY USES COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY TO BUILD HIGH-PERFORMANCE GEAR.

Byline: Bill Becher Special to the Daily News

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Build a better saltwater fishing reel and you'll land bigger fish.

The driveway to Avet Reels in Chatsworth is getting worn and the two brothers who own the company have a picture of an 855-pound, two-story black marlin tamed in 55 minutes on a reel they designed and made.

Harout Alajajyan and his brother Sarkis have been doing precision machining for others since 1987, most recently making fiber optic connectors to tolerances measured in millionths of an inch for the communications industry. But ever since they visited the Black Sea at home in Armenia, the two have loved saltwater fishing.

The brothers started manufacturing fishing reels in 2002. The communications industry was in recession and the brothers decided it was time to stop making other people's products and create their own. They had $6 million worth of computer-controlled CNC machinery to whittle reel parts out of solid aluminum and plenty of ideas how to make a better mousetrap, er, fishing reel.

Their product is a new line of high performance salt-water fishing reels that cost less than the competition.

Harout Alajajyan's face lights up when he talks about the innovations and quality he's built into his reels. Features such as a spool lock that allows you to completely stop the spool in order to readjust the drag with a fish on, or break off your line if you're snagged on the bottom.

He points out many anglers have been taking reels to customizers to add features that are built into the Avets. He's especially proud of the casting control feature in the lever drag that keeps the reel from overspooling and backlashing when casting or managing bait. It took only a modification of the drag's cam to create this, not additional parts. Alajajyan says more parts can mean more things to go wrong, even on a fairly simple product.

``A fishing reel isn't the Space Shuttle,'' Harout Alajajyan said. ``It's a clutch.''

But that doesn't mean Avet reels don't have space-age components and aren't machined to aerospace tolerances.

What's hard about designing a good reel according to Alajajyan is getting all the features needed into a small place and making it reliable, low maintenance and affordable.

Most salt-water reels have four ball bearings. Avets have six and no bushings, which eliminates binding caused by side loads. The drag plate on the EX models is made out of hard-to-machine titanium, which never corrodes (they plumb nuclear reactors with the stuff). Titanium is also light and stands up to the heat generated fighting a big fish without distorting.

The drag washers in Avet reels are made of carbon fiber composite, same as the brake pads on a jet plane.

Their smallest reel is the lever-drag single-speed SX, which can fit in the palm of your hand. But the brothers say it can land just about any fish common in Southern California salt water, from calicos to albies and white sea bass. The oversized crank handle looks like a Popeye arm on an Olive Oyle body. An angler winched up a 137-pound tuna in 37 minutes using the reel.

Their largest reel is the Pro EXW 50, designed to hold 100-pound test or more than a half-mile of 50 pound line. This reel is made for yellow fin cows, triple-digit blue fin, swordfish, marlin, sharks and the other sea monsters. It features push-button shifting two-speed retrieve and a dual-caliper pre-set lever drag capable of applying 55 pounds of fish-fighting force.

Set to debut at the Fred Hall Show in March is an as-yet-named Avet reel with four drag washers and two drag plates. Like the front disc brakes on a Porsche, these will stop a thousand pound fish on a screaming run. Most anglers will never need the top end braking capacity of the new reels, Harout Alajajyan said, but having a reel run at less than its drag capacity means it stays cooler and the drag is smoother.

The Avet drags are dry, without the grease some manufacturers add. All you have to do after fishing is dunk the reels in fresh water - no disassembly is required, the brothers said.

The Avet reels are flying off the shelf at tackle shops. Dean Enderess at Malibu Fish N' Tackle in Thousand Oaks said anglers are buying the Avet reels and putting their old gear in the consignment bin because of the quality and value in the Avets. Wayne Caywood, owner of Malibu Fish N' Tackle, said the Avet is the ``hot reel right now.''

``It's new, different and innovative,'' Caywood said. He especially likes the automatic clicker disengagement feature when you crank the handle on the two-speed reels and the spool lock button.

Avet reels are finding their way around the world, to customers as far away as Italy, South Africa, Japan, Australia and Malaysia.

Mice, watch out. You might be next.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo:

(1) Avet Reels co-owner Harout Alajajyan check a reel component at the company's Chatsworth facility.

(2) Harout Alajajyan displays parts of reels his company designs to be reliable, low-maintenance and affordable.

(3) no caption (Harout Alajajyan holding up part of a reel)

(4) The 885-pound marlin caught on an Avet reel.

(5) no caption (reel)

By Bill Becher/Special to the Daily News