Fishing scissors, baiting needles and other fishing tools - why it is important to have the right ones

Rig tools possibly aren’t something that you think about much when it comes to your carp fishing, but having the right ones can make your life so much easier when constructing rigs and the like.

In fact, sometimes not having the right fishing tools to tie rigs can make the whole process a nightmare and much harder than it should be, with things like split hook baits or frayed ends to your hook link material which make it hard to tie a knotless knot!

You don’t need a massive collection of rig tools either, which can clutter up your tackle box, just a few that will make life easier for you on the bank, and ultimately help you to catch more carp.

A clean cut makes rig tying so much easier

For any of you who have ever forgotten or lost your fishing scissors during a carp fishing session, you will know how essential they are and how difficult it is without them, or even if the pair that you do have doesn’t work as it should do.

The most important thing with a pair of fishing scissors is that they are not only sharp and strong enough to cut through whatever type of hook link material or line you are using, whether that be monofilament, braid or fluorocarbon, but that they also give you a very clean cut.

This is even more important with any type of braid or coated braid, as if you don’t get a clean cut, the ends of it will immediately start to fray, making it very hard to thread it through anything without further fraying – and that is especially important when it comes to going through the eye of a hook, such as when tying a knotless knot, and especially where it can be a tighter fit to get it back through the eye to complete the knot.

The Korda Razor Blades are, as the name suggests, razor sharp and will easily go through any hook link material, leaving a very clean cut and no fraying, thanks to the serrated edges, making it very easy to pass it through the eye of even a small hook.

The Razor Blades are made from high quality stainless steel so they won’t rust and also remain sharp, even after prolonged use out in all weather and getting damp. The ergonomically designed handles are designed to be comfortable for even the largest fingers, and are bright green in colour, so if you do drop them on the ground, they’re easy to spot. Plus they will fit in any of the larger compartments in your Tackle Box, or even a Tackle Safe.

There is also a version available within the Basix range, which are designed to have the same features.

Baiting needles, splicing needles, and stringer needles come in multiple variants

Within the Korda Rig Tools range there are six different needles, which each serves a different purpose, and come with colour coded handles to make it easy to quickly identify and pick the fishing tools you need from your tackle box.

They are strong and built to last – although obviously with the finer needles you need to be careful how much force you apply, as using more than what they have been designed for can cause the needle to snap – and have an ergonomically designed handle so that they feel nice in your fingers and allow you to get a good grip.

There are four different types of baiting needle, which are designed for mounting different types of hook bait on different materials.

This might sound over the top, but with some baits you will need a finer diameter needle to avoid splitting them; or they might be rock hard, such as a nut and you need a stronger needle in order to be able to push it through them.

The same is true for different types of hook link material as well, and whilst a crook design of needle is perfect for use with braid, where it will sit neatly in the crook and stay there which you thread your bait off of the needle and onto your hair, they don’t work anywhere near as well with mono, and it can easily come adrift of the crook, so a latched needle is better in that instance.

For use with braided hook link materials the Korda range has the Braided Hair Needle (yellow) and the Super Fine Braid Needle (blue), and between them cover any type of bait you could want to mount.

If you are using monofilament or fluorocarbon, then the Latch Needle Heavy (green) and Latch Needle Fine (purple) are the two that you will need, depending on what type of hook baits you will be using.

There is also a Basix Baiting Needle, which is strong and has a larger crook, making it suitable for most baits and hook link materials.

It isn’t just mounting hook baits though where a needle is essential, and a Splicing Needle (orange) is well worth having in your tackle box as well. This makes it easy to splice hollow braided materials, such as the Korda Kable Leadcore or DuraKord, but also for other things as well where you need to pull your hook link or line back through something – such as an anti-tangle sleeve, or even a Combi Multi Kicker if you are using it in the same way as Darrell Peck for his popular combi rig.

The final needle in the range is a Stik Needle (red) which is much longer than the others, at 12cm, and is specifically for mounting PVA mesh sticks of bait onto your hook link, dynamite stick style, and makes it very easy to do as long as you have a look in one end of the hook link (which attaches to your swivel via some sort of quick change clip). Just make sure your sticks aren’t longer than the needle!

Crimping tools

These days many of the most popular rigs include a stiff boom section, and the simplest way to construct one is often via crimping rather than tying knots.

Rigs such as the Ronnie rig and combi rigs incorporate things such as Korda Boom, which is a fluorocarbon material, and which can easily be crimped for a very strong and reliable connection. Plus, it makes it easy to get it exactly the desired length consistently every time.

In order to do that you need a proper set of crimping pliers that are designed to be used with the sizes of crimp that you are planning to use – if you don’t crimp them properly then your rig is likely to fail under pressure.

The Korda Mini Krimp Tool is made from high quality stainless steel, with rubberised handles to allow you to supply sufficient pressure without it slipping out of your hands and can be used with any of the three size of Krimp that we make, with a separate, clearly labelled ‘slot’ for each. Although you can also use it to crimp a small size of Krimp in the ‘large’ slot, as Darrell Peck prefers to do – however you use it, make sure that the crimp size if suitable for your chosen diameter of hook link material (and that the material can actually be crimped), as you need a fairly tight fit in the barrel of the crimp even before you use the Krimp Tool on it.

The Krimp Tool also has a line cutter on it as well, which is perfect for use with Boom and will give a very neat cut, plus will easily fit inside your Tackle Box.

Bait drills

Another essential item for your tackle box when it comes to rig tools is at least one or two different sizes of bait drill.

The smaller diameter of drills allow you to bore a hole through very hard baits, such as pellets, air dried boilies, or dog biscuits, without splitting them – which often happens with a standard baiting needle, assuming you can even get it through them without it slipping and going through your hand instead! You can then use this pilot hole to thread the bait onto your rig using a standard type of baiting needle.

The other use for them is to enable you to use one of the larger diameter ones to bore out part of a hook bait, such as a boilie straight out of the packet or a tiger nut, and then to plug that hole with a piece of cork stick to add buoyancy to the bait, but of an amount which you can control (unlike with a wafter where all the ones in a pot are the same and may be more, or less, buoyant than you want). This is something you will have seen Danny Fairbrass doing in some of his videos where he wants to add a little bit of buoyancy to a match-the-hatch boilie that is identical to his freebies.

The Korda bait drills are precision engineered, with a small spike on the end to enable you to get the drill to enter the bait exactly where you want it to, and they will go through any bait without much chance of splitting it. The ergonomically designed handle allows you to get a good grip and apply sufficient pressure, even on the smallest size.

The Korda Bait Drill comes in a choice of 1mm, 4mm, 6mm, and 8mm, with matching cork sticks for the three larger sizes – the 1mm drill is intended just for making a hole through the bait.

Pulla tools

Some hook link materials knot very easily and don’t need any straightening, whilst others take a bit more effort to get them just right.

Heavier monofilament or fluorocarbon lines need knots to be properly bedded down, to ensure they can’t slip and to provide a neat finish – plus with some knots that are used to join two different lines, such as the Albright, if there is any issue with the knot then you will instantly see it when you put it under extreme pressure.

The last thing you want to do with your rig is to risk putting any sort of kink in it, and the T shaped Korda Pulla Tool is perfect, as it can be pushed through your hook link swivel or loop at one end, and a second Pulla can be used at the other around the bend of your hook, to enable you to give it a really good pull.

Not only does this bed down knots, but it also helps to straighten some materials, where they have some memory after coming off of the hook link spool.

The strong stainless steel hook is just the right size to enable it to fit through the eye of a size 8 swivel, or anything larger, and the rubberised handle means you can get a really good grip and there is no risk of it slipping out of your hand.

Injecting solid bags with liquids

Solid PVA bags are a very popular choice these days and many anglers like to give them a boost with some sort of PVA friendly liquid.

This can be messy and by far the easiest way of doing it is via the Korda PVA Bag Syringe, which comes complete with two different needles – they don’t have a sharp point but will easily penetrate through our Solidz bags.

This syringe has a 10ml capacity, so plenty enough space for any liquid you want to inject into the bag, plus measuring lines in 1ml increments so you can see how much you’ve put in. The two needles have different bores, making them suitable for different liquids – for thicker liquids such as some Korda Carp Goo you will want to use the larger bore one.

Stripping coated braid

Coated braid hook links are very versatile and are designed so that they can be easily stripped, yet the outer layer is strong enough that it won’t break in places where you don’t want it to.

To save damaging your teeth and ending up with a big bill at the dentist, there is a proper Strippa Tool in the Korda range, which is purposely designed for removing the outer coating of any coated braid, but without doing any damage to the inner.  

The anodised aluminium Strippa Tool easily fits in any tackle box, and also has circular grooves at each end which can be used for tightening loop knots without ruining the shape of them.

Chod It Tool creates perfect loop knots

Some anglers still prefer to tie some types of rigs, such as chods and stiff hinge rigs, rather than crimping them, and in with some of these set-ups the shape of the loop that you tie is important in terms of how the rig behaves.

The Korda Chod It Tool can be used to create perfect loops of any size suitable for these types of rigs, thanks to its tapered design, and is also useful when it comes to teasing the ‘D’ part of your rig, where the hookbait attaches via a ring or micro swivel, into the perfect shape.

Attaching your hook baits

Whilst not technically a rig tool, Bait Floss goes hand-in-hand with things such as baiting needles and is essential for many rigs.

Any situation where you are attaching a hook bait to a ring or a micro swivel (with the exception of bait screws) is going to require the use of some sort of bait floss, and the Korda range includes two different varieties – waxed and unwaxed.

If you’re going to be threading the floss through the centre of the bait and using one of the Korda Floss Caps, or even just blobbing the ends with a lighter, then the waxed version works well.

But if you are intending to tie the hook bait on via some sort of lasso which runs around the outside of it, then the unwaxed version is best as it grips much better and there is less chance of it slipping and leaving you with no bait on your rig. Both are sold on 30m spools, so will last you for a very long time, and will fit neatly into the Korda Tackle Box.