GARDNER Ultra Skin 20m

The new Gardner Ultra Skin is a super soft, supple and ‘skinned’ braided hooklink material. Ultra Skin is available in three matt colours – Green, Brown and Silt and in three breaking strains – 15lb, 25lb and 35lb. These are perfectly suited a wide range of carp and specialist angling situations.

The 15lb strain has a very low diameter (only 0.50mm) and has been used with huge success by both carp and specimen anglers looking for a hooklink that offers finesse without compromising reliability.

The 25lb version is the all rounder for the carp specialist. It retains a low profile whilst the extra strength doesn’t mean a significant jump up in finished diameter, and at 0.55mm it is still amazingly thin for a 25lb skinned hooklink!

In 35lb Ultra Skin is simply formidable! It is capable of coping with the most arduous big carp fishing situations, despite only being a fraction thicker than the 25lb versions. If you’re fishing for big carp on a big water, near snags or pads, you’ll need a hooklink to rely on and this is it.

Skinned hooklinks have been widely available for many years now, Ultra Skin now offers significant improvements in terms of feel, colour, finish and ease of use.

It is really the softest and supplest material of its type; with the colours carefully specified and tweaked until we were 100% satisfied they were the best hue and 100% correct.

The matt finish isn’t only for show; it really helps the material blend into the aquatic environment and the soft feel means that if a fish bumps into it, whilst feeding on a baited spot, it feels ‘natural’ and is less likely to alarm a fish that may be a bit ‘edgy’. Of course this is also helped by the fact that the material sinks well, and is more likely to settle flush to the lake bed.

As anglers we realise that most soft hooklinks need pinning down (because the hook bait tends to drop nearer the lead than the length of the hooklink) and a blob of Critical Mass tungsten putty half way along the hooklink really makes a difference to your final presentation – even with really heavy hooklink materials like Ultra Skin – particularly if you’re fishing on hard spots that are very clean due to feeding fish.

Ultra Skin is easy to strip and will not rupture whilst tightening down a well tied ‘figure of 8’ loop knot.

The unique polymer mix used in the skin means that Ultra Skin straightens easily*, even just using your fingertips.

(*Keeping your hooklinks straight is important, as it improves the manner in which the rig settles and helps to alleviate tangles. Sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference in terms of a rig’s overall performance.)

Is this the best skinned hooklink available? We think so…