I can imagine the look on the Editor’s face when he received my email entitled ‘Stripper Review’. Unfortunately (for some), this is a stripper of a very different kind, but one which none-the-less has become a very firm favourite in my tackle bag!
Sometimes you get hold of a product and as soon as you start using it you wonder why you’d not got one before, and the Peel & Pull Stripper Tool from Gardner is a perfect example. For years I’ve knocked up my coated braid carp rigs using fingernails and scissors, and whilst for the large part I’ve come through relatively unscathed, there have been many occasions where I’ve struggled to strip back just the right amount of coating, have taken off too much, or have ended up fraying the internal core… Grrrrr!
The Gardner Stripper Tool is a very simple but highly effective little device which allows you to easily strip back the removable coating applied to many of today’s most popular hooklink materials. It works on coated hooklinks from any manufacturer, and all you have to do is feed the hooklink into the cutting notch, apply a little pressure and then strip it back – job done.
At the other end there is a round-edge profile knot puller. This is ideal for bedding in knots on all kinds of set-ups and prevents damage or abrasion if using scissors or other sharp/ hard edged items. I use a lot of fluorocarbon hooklinks in my fishing and it’s imperative to bed the knots in properly before use, and again, this little tool has been so good in this regard that I now use two; using one at each end to gently prepare and stretch the links – they’re perfect!
Whilst a stripper tool is never actually going to put you a fish on the bank, what it will do is speed up the time it takes to make up your rigs, help you to tie and strengthen them more effectively, and reduce the amount of clutter you need to have around you – all of which will help you to spend more time fishing and less time rig making.
I have to be honest in that I’m not one of those who likes to sit for hours on end making up rigs; to me they are a means to an end and I tie whatever I need given the situation at hand. As such, if there’s something available that helps to speed up that process AND make the finished result even safer and stronger, then so much the better!
Whilst sitting here contemplating how best to sum this little gadget up, it suddenly came to me that the best thing about it is that it’s stopped me having to use my teeth when tying up rigs and bedding down knots… and after twenty-odd years of rig making that’s no bad thing!
The Gardner Peel & Pull Stripper Tool retails at £3.99 form your local stockist.
More at: http://gardnertackle.co.uk/
Julian Grattidge
December 2012
