Knipex 71 31 200 cutters

When you use big lures with with big hooks you occasionally get a pike that has engulfed the whole lure and there is not enough room to manouevre the hooks free with pliers, you have to cut the hooks, sometimes the splitrings as well, in order to get a fast release. You need reliable cutters that won't let you down when you need to cut the shank of a 4/0 treble from an awkward angle - these are the ones. Once you have a set of good cutters you find you reach for them quite often to deal with hook problems - in clothes or nets, in hands(ouch!), when a little perch gets all three points of a treble in its lips and increasingly for lots of household/garden jobs.

They are expensive: between £30 and £40, so look after them; mine are taped to a cord attached to a spring-loaded lanyard - if they drop in the water they don't float.

Why spend so much when you can buy mini bolt croppers for under a tenner? Because when you need to cut a hook you need the kit to work, even if it's the tenth or hundredth time you've used them, these will just keep on cutting when your umpteenth pair of mini croppers are due for replacement.

Shop around on the net for the best price.