Korda Developments
New Products for 2010
Part One
Sometimes it takes a company to "reinvent the wheel" with some products, whilst other manufacturers will sit back and repackage already available products. The guys at Korda Developments are obviously not in the latter bracket of my previous statement and have been looking at developing, improving and perfecting products that anglers may have in their armoury but are not able comfortably use effectively. With the new products introduced into the Korda portfolio for the new season, some of the trickier tasks that anglers faced look to be made a lot easier. Big claims from Korda - are the new products going to live up to them?
UKMA received a box a few weeks back with some of the companies new products and we have taken a close look at them before putting our words down.
Korda Mouth Trap
 Mouth Trap has been designed and developed to make hinged stiff rigs and chod rigs as easy to construct as humanly possible. We had heard all the rumblings on the bank and around the media about this hooklink material and as I am a great advocate of the chod and hinged stiff rigs, I was wondering how Korda could have improved on the products currently available?
The very first thing I look for with any line, be it hooklink or mainline, is the stated diameter. I was a little surprised when I looked at the stated diameter on the Mouth Trap packaging as it was greater than some of the other stiff rig materials I have in my armoury. My first thought was that it would be a struggle to put the thickest of the three breaking strains through the eye of a size 6 Korda Choddy (or size 5 E.S.P Stiff Rigger - both of which are the patterns I use for the majority of my fishing). I was proven completely wrong on both counts as I had no problems at all with putting the Mouth Trap through the eye of both patterns three times using a knotless knot and blobbed "D" without having to cut the material at an angle (which is something that I had to do with other thinner materials). I had to use my micrometer on the 25lb version (which is stated at 0.53mm) and the diameter was exactly as stated. The same was also done on the 15lb and 20lb versions with the same result.
Upon pulling a length off the spool, it was immediately evident that Mouth Trap was extremely stiff and after running my fingers along it a couple of times, any twists or kinks in the material were smoothed out perfectly. With some of the other materials comonly used, they require either steaming or heating up to produce the same results.
I was also surprised at how easily knots bedded down with Mouth Trap. Tightening down a 3 turn half blood knot can cause kinking of other materials as the coils move down the material - even with tightening underwater or lubricated with saliva. Mouth Trap had no signs of kinking or compression of the material with a fully tightened knot. I would go as far to say that the knots would not slip under heavy pressure and that blobbing is not required - I will still personally blob the tags as that is how I have always done it and takes any niggles of doubt out of my mind.
The colouration of the material is also different from others. Korda have had a green tint incorporated during the manufacturing process that will blend in with any substrate. Some anglers will say that the colour doesn't really make a difference to a chod rig as the fish cannot see the hooklink when feeding on popped up baits. Even if this is true, having a colouration that blends in can only increase confidence rather than detract from it.
Even though the material is very stiff, it doesn't require any special treatment to be used effectively. After tying up a couple of chod rigs myself, I passed the components to the wife and set her the task of tying one up (she is not an angler but is a quick learner!). After showing her the basic knots and how it should be, she set about tying up her very first rig. 5 minutes later she had tied up a chod rig that would put most anglers to shame, and without needing any assistance! I then passed her a spool of one of the other materials that I use, and asked her to repeat it. She struggled with the other material as it was not as easy to use. That test alone proved to me how good Mouth Trap actually is.
There has been mentions around some of the internet forums, that anglers had been reeling baits in to find that Mouth Trap had come back completely straight rather than keeping the curve when used as a chod rig. I set about the task of putting a Mouth Trap constructed chod rig into a fish tank with a corkball pop-up tied onto the ring and overweighted using putty to make sure it stayed on the bottom. After 4 days in the water, the curve was still exactly as I had set it. If this "straightening" is happening to some anglers, I would suggest that it is happening during the reeling in process and is nothing to be concerned about whatsoever. After every retrieval, anglers should be checking the rig to make sure that the curve is exactly right anyway and adjustments made, regardless of the material used, before recasting. It takes a couple of seconds to reset the curve in the material by running it through your fingers. A couple of seconds taken could be that fish of a lifetime on the unhooking mat!
Overall Conclusion
I have tried my hardest to find fault with Mouth Trap, but I simply cannot find any at all! It ticks every box that I look for in a chod material. I even tied up a couple of combi-rigs using a short braided section tied with an Albright Knot to the Mouth Trap and it performed flawlessly for the task of a boom.
Korda Solidz PVA Bag System
 When anglers saw the Solidz PVA bag system on the most recent Korda Tips & Tackle DVD (free from all Korda stockists), there was a mixed reaction with some saying that there is no way that Korda could improve on current PVA bags and others saying that they would get on them as soon as they were available. I like to keep an open mind on new products until I have tried them for myself.
A few days before the Solidz arrived at the UKMA office, I had ben handed a pack of the small sized Solidz by a local tackle shop that I popped into so I could try them out and let the shop know how they differ from others available (the shop is primarily a match fishing shop with no specimen anglers working there).
I tend to use a lot more solid PVA bags (due to fishing very weedy waters) than I do the mesh stocking materials, and although I was happy with the bags I was using, I always had a little doubt in the back of my mind that the bag had not dissolved fully around the join to the rig (yes I am extremely paranoid when it comes to things like this), and I was hoping that the Solidz range would rid me of this paranoia.
On opening the packaging and removing the contents, Korda have included an insert that gives step by step instructions to the angler on how to get the best out of the Solidz range. This may not be of interest to some anglers, but there is always newcomers to the sport that require guidance. The instructions have also been translated into other languages were Korda distribute to around Europe.
Korda have also looked at the fiddly nature of filling a solid bag without spilling loads of bait everywhere, and have included a disposable filling tool. The filling tool is essentially a flat piece of bright green plastic (what other colour did you expect from the Korda guys?) that has two extruded lugs at one that allows the plastic to be folded into a scoop. Until you have tried using a small scoop to load a PVA bag, you do not realise how much easier it is doing it this way! I have been using a small scoop that my step-daughter had in one of her toy kitchens to load up my solid bags which was in reality too small but eliminated wastage, and the Korda supplied scoop with every pack of the Solidz bags is a very welcome addition indeed. The scoop also folds back flat again for easy storage in the resealable packaging. Fully loading a bag takes literally seconds and is perfect for those who are fishing on limited time or the competitive anglers amongst us.
Looking at the construction of the Solidz, I can honestly say that a lot of thought has gone into them. Unlike a lot of other bags, the Solidz have heat welded seams down the sides only instead of having a seam along the bottom edge as well. The seams have also been created on the very edge of the bags to eliminate 99% of the excess PVA that a lot of other bags have on the seams. This means that to make the most aerodynamic bag possible, the angler no longer has to either trim off the excess PVA around the bags or stick them down. The excess on the seams is a maximum of a couple of millimetres.
The opening at the end of the bag has also been thought out to make it very easy for the angler to open up as 3mm has been left on one flat side which stops any sticking of the material all together.
Unlike some of the other bags available, the Solidz are very robust in construction. Inserting a couple of fingers and stretching the PVA hard, did not rip the material or the seams, with the PVA seeming to have a good deal of elasticity. This is required when making bags for long distance work when the bag needs to be as solid as possible after construction.
Crunch time! How did the Solidz fare with the breakdown times? In the UKMA fishtank, the Small Solidz bag took 12 seconds to breakdown fully at a water temperature of 18C. In iced water with a temperature of approximately 3C, the bag took longer to fully breakdown with the stop watch displaying 39 seconds. In comparison to some of the other bags that I have tried, these times for total breakdown are very impressive indeed and prove that the Solidz are true all year round use PVA.
Overall Conclusion
I have tried hard again to find fault with the Solidz PVA system, but again I cannot find any! Those who have rough hands will find them easy to work with as will those who have soft skin. None of the bags showed any sign of sticking together and requiring a lot of hassle opening or seperating. When loaded with bait, the PVA could be stretched to form a very tight package which can be cast a long way and burst open dispersing the bait in a larger spread than if the bait was left loose in a small pile.
Korda Kontour Fluorocarbon Mainline
 Anybody that has watched the Korda Underwater DVD's will know that the Korda guys rate fluorocarbon reel lines very highly indeed and very rarely use anything else. The trouble with fluorocarbons is that they have always tended to be wirey and difficult to cast long distances with. With this in mind, the guys at Korda have looked at the technologies available within line development and come up with what they class as the ultimate fluorocarbon mainline which has the beneficial qualities of traditional fluorocarbons, but acts like a good monofilament when casting and behaving upon the reel spool. Pretty substantial claims, but does Kontour live up to them?
As I mentioned in a recent reel line review, I am a die hard braided mainline user due to the venues that I tend to fish requiring the use of it to get the best results, but I am always open to change and with more and more waters having braided mainline bans in place, I have struggled to find a non-braided reel line that I have the same confidence in.
The first thing that you notice is the traditional Korda packaging. This just stands out on the shelf amongst other lines, and is sure to keep the line in tip-top condition on the shelf. Inside the packaging though is where the improtant factors lay.
Kontour is available in a single breaking strain of 12lb with a 0.33mm stated diameter. Each spool contains 200 metres of line.
On opening the packaging, Kontour is supplied on a large diameter spool. This is important with all lines as it means that the line is transferred onto the spool with minimal twist from the bail arm roller (you are never going to eliminate twist on a fixed spool reel regardless due to the nature of them). As per normal I pulled the line off the spool and looked first at the suppleness of the product. Although Knotour is not as supple as a traditional monofilament, it is the most supple of all the fluorcarbons that I have looked at. Running it through my fingers the surface of the line is smooth with no rough patches felt.
When holding the line up and letting it go loose you can see that it is a dense line indeed.
Next test is the micrometer. Along a 10m length of Kontour, I placed the micrometer against the line and tested the diameter 10 times and taking the average dimension. The stated diameter is 0.33mm and the average diameter on the 10 measurements was 0.331mm. The stated diameter is as close to perfect as it can be.
Knot strength is also very good. With the recommended grinner and palomar knots, I obtained breaking strains of 11lb 13oz with the grinner and 11lb 14oz with the palomar. I didn't test it with any other knots as these proved that the knot strength is as close to the stated breaking strain as can be expected.
In the UKMA tank, when held under tension in the water I did not experience the "fibre optic" effect that I have seen with some fluorocarbon lines. The line was still visible though. When let to become slack in the water, I struggled to see the line laying on the gravel substrate.
I have not had the chance to put Kontour through an on the bank test due to other committments (i.e. getting married!), but I am looking forward to putting Kontour through it's paces on my next session.
Overall Conclusion
Compared to some of the other fluorocarbon reel lines on the market, Kontour is a completely different beast in the way it reacts. Only one other fluorocarbon reel line that I have seen has reacted in a similar way and the other line impressed me a lot. I have high expectations that Kontour will react in the exact same way on the bank. Knot strength, diameter and suppleness are all exactly what I am looking for in a main line. Some people hate flourocarbons due to the way the original lines handled, but I am sure that if you give Kontour a try that you will change your mind.
Well done Korda with Kontour and the wait looks to be worthwhile indeed.
For more information on any of the items in the product range, please click on the Korda logo below.
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