A lot of anglers now use light hollow elastics for canal work, we have anglers raving about the new hydro yellow 3-5 currently selling at £13.99 on e-bay we also have the new kid on the block tackle nets with their lightest 2- core hollow being Teal rated at 5-8 selling at £5.99 +75p postage, however my vote on the quality stakes and the bang for buck must go to Nick Gilberts hollows the blue 4- 6 and the pink 6-8 are extremely good and I do not say this lightly, stretch factor is comparable with all three elastics, however Nick’s beats the hydro by a country mile on price, as for tacklenets teal rated 5-8 Nick’s elastic beats this by a country mile in diameter, even the 6-8 rated pink is a lot thinner than the tacklenets teal, (I do wonder how some of these elastics are rated however) and as for the blue 4-6 I didn’t even realise they made hollow elastic that thin, Nick Gilberts blue and Pink are “The” light elastics for canal/commercial silvers work – for roach, ide, perch, chub, gudgeon and skimmers this stuff is the “Bizz” as we know lots of anglers are hooking carp when fishing for silvers on canals or commercials the trouble is when using fine solid elastics, apart from the fact we as anglers suffer from it occasionally sticking and then needing lubricating or alternatively hanging out the end of the pole causing tangles we know that when hooking into a lump getting these big bonus fish out is tricky, sometimes virtually an impossibility, however with these super slim hollow elastics and a pulla kit the impossible is now possible, these grades are superb stuff, the other great thing about purchasing Nick Gilberts elastic is that you can buy it to length and Nick will sell you only what you need or order direct from his website at 2.5 metres for £5.80 + pp etc. this is sufficient for virtually all side pulla kits and some top kits with Preston pulla bungs so measure up! I and a lot of anglers think for far to long we have been paying well over the odds for hollow elastic and I think Nick and Tacklenets are breaking that trend, however with tacklenets now saying that the 2 core is being sold at an introductory price of £5.99 and has a shop value of £10.99 I get the feeling that their prices will rise, the good thing with Nick Gilbert is that he is an angler and although he is running a business his prices have to be better than competitive to get anglers to change buying habits, which is great for us anglers, however what I would say to any angler who is also switching to light hollow elastics for silvers/commercials/canals is to have a good look at a lot of different brands of light elastics, However in my assessment Nick’s elastics take some beating both in firstly quality of product and secondly price.

Having the right elastic is definitely worth checking out and may save you a bob or two.