LATEST ADDITIONS

When our samples of the Kutter (three sizes, 16mm, 20mm and 25mm) first arrived in the office I was eager to give one a go. I had a couple of kilos of boilies that I needed to feed alongside my particle mix but I didn’t want to put them in whole. I opted for the middle-sized Kutter and haven’t looked back since. Chopping these baits into halves was an absolute doddle, saving me a lot of time and wear on my fingers!The compact design allows it to be stored easily in a bait bucket or bag and, with one click, the handle opens out and is ready for use.

The TC team has been extremely impressed with the Razor Points, and we’ve all rated them as some of the sharpest hooks we’ve seen in a very long time. For me, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this issue, when you’re paying the sorts of prices that modern hooks command (these are over £1 less than some on the market), you’re entitled to expect them to be sharp straight from the packet. These do not disappoint, but more importantly, they are consistently sharp across all of the various patterns and in all sizes – the latter not being particularly true of some ranges. As usual, there is a Teflon-type coating, the camou benefits of which I have always doubted (on all hooks) but there’s no doubt that it makes the hooks smoother, so it’s presumed that they penetrate more easily.

We run our three, six and 12-months-on features in these pages but these scales have accompanied me on the majority of trips for over five years. If there is a better set of dial scales on the market then I haven’t seen them. In fact, take it from me, there isn’t! Okay, some may prefer personalised versions, but the scales themselves remain the same. Mine are 60lb x 1oz versions, more than ample for any carp that I am ever likely to encounter, in the UK at least, and they remain super-accurate.

We featured the H-Gun Elevator in our Buyer’s Guide to unhooking mats in the February issue and were impressed with its combination of protection, ease of use and value. This newer Deluxe version is essentially the same model but offers larger dimensions to cope with carp in excess of 40lb. Don’t worry if you target smaller carp than that because an unhooking mat can only ever be too small, it can never be too big. Easy to erect, the Elevator folds up and down in seconds and offers total protection to the carp while being unhooked and made ready for those all-important trophy shots.