Korda Kickers

Korda Kickers are one of those bits of kit that sit in pretty much every carp angler's tackle box without anyone making a fuss about them. They're small rubber line aligners that slide onto the shank of your hook, with your hooklink coming out through the back, and their whole job is to kick the hook point down and round so it catches hold in the bottom lip rather than skidding out. It's a tiny thing, but on a lot of rigs it's the bit doing the clever work, so it's worth knowing exactly what you're buying and when it actually helps.

The idea isn't new. Anglers were using bits of silicone tube and shrink tube to angle their hooks long before Korda bagged them up, but Kickers took the guesswork out of it. Each one has a moulded shape with a longer leg that sits along the shank and an angled exit for the hooklink, so every one you put on gives the same kick. That consistency is the real selling point. If you've ever tied six rigs on a Friday night and found three of them sitting slightly different, you'll get why a pre-formed aligner is handy.

They come in a few sizes so you can match them to your hook. Small suits smaller patterns, Medium is the one most of us reach for on size 6 to 8 wide gapes and curve shanks, Large and XL suit bigger hooks and chunkier eyes. Get the size wrong and you'll know about it straight away: too small and it splits or won't go over the eye, too big and it slides about and loses its grip on the shank. It's well worth having a couple of sizes in the box so you're not forcing the wrong one on in the dark.

Colour is the other choice, and Korda do a decent spread. There are muted greens, weedy shades and browns that blend into silt and gravel, plus brighter options for anglers who like a bit of visual pull near the hook bait. For most day-to-day fishing on pressured UK waters, a dull green or brown that matches the lakebed is the safe bet. Brighter ones have their place on a pop-up or a zig-style presentation where you want the whole thing to stand out, but they're not essential.

Where do Kickers earn their keep? On a classic blowback or a simple knotless knot rig with a wide gape hook like the Korda Kamakura or Krank, a Kicker sat just past the bend gives that aggressive angle that helps turn the hook. On a hinged stiff or a chod, you'll often see one used to set the angle of the boom section. They also stop your hair or hooklink sitting awkwardly, so the rig resets better after a fish has had a mouth at it and blown it out.

Are there downsides? Not many, but they're there. Like any rubber, they can split if you force them over a big eye or leave them baking in the sun in your rig box for a season. Some anglers reckon a very aggressive kick can hook fish slightly further back or make the hook more likely to catch on weed, so on really snaggy or weedy spots you may want to tone it down. And they're not a magic fix. A Kicker on a blunt hook or a badly tied rig is still a blunt hook on a badly tied rig.

In this review we've gone through what Korda say about the Kickers, how they fit with the hooks and hooklinks most UK carp anglers use, and where they make sense compared with plain shrink tube or other aligners. Our score is an on-paper score, judged on the specs, how they fit common carp tactics and the price, not a bank test. If you've used them yourself, chuck your own score in the angler reviews further down the page. That's the bit that really tells other anglers whether they're worth a few quid.

Bottom line before we get into the detail: if you tie your own carp rigs and you're not already using some kind of line aligner, a pack of Kickers in Medium in a muted colour is one of the cheapest upgrades you can make to your terminal tackle. They're cheap, quick to fit and they make every rig you tie sit the same, which is half the battle when you're trying to work out why one rod's getting the bites and the other isn't.