The Winder..... the only knot tyer you will never need.

This is The Winder. You may have one. It you do, you probably have realized by now that you have just spent 20 something dollars on a product you most likely don't really need, and if you are like me, wont use. It is a neat gadget though.

If you have of these, you don't need a Winder.

And if you also have a pair of these, you really don't need a winder.

So, about 6 months ago I had a Amazon gift card for 25 bucks. I was perusing the fishing stuff and stumbled across this sci-fi looking devise called The Winder. "Perfect Knots Every Time!" It said. Wow, that thing looks sweet! Visions of magical knot tying wonderfullness filled my head. Stick some line in one end, twist this, pull this, unscrew this.... BANG! A Perfect knot! I had to see for myself, so I forked over the $23.95 plus shippings worth of someone else's money and waited for my new gadget to arrive and make life worth living.

One afternoon I heard the UPS truck out front and ran like a giddy little school to get my new toy. I tore the package open, and spent the next 10 minutes taking it apart, putting it back together and rattling it back and forth. I have to say it is a pretty entertaining little devise.

The first thing that bothered me was a lack of printed instructions. It did come with an annoyingly slow DVD instructional video. After watching the video I realized that the Winder was not a magic, after all. Bummer.

The Winder allows you to tie all the knots you most lilely already know but in a way that seems more complicated. It does have a handy feature that allows you to hold loops, tag ends, and hooks if needed, and makes wrapping knots like the Albright and Nail knot easier by being able to spin the body of the tool in your hand. The Widner also does help keep the excess tag ends to a minimum. But these knots are just as easy to tie with the help of a Fast Knot Tier (above), the end of a pair of hemostats, or even a nail.

In the end, I would say that if you fly fish, and know how to tie these knots and have a tool that helps you with the hard ones, you don't need a Winder. If you are new to knot tying, or have vision problems or problems holding line and tying knots in general this tool would help you. It does tie knots, and pretty well too, but I hope that people dont come to dependent on help for tying all their knots. There are only a couple knots that, in my opinion, are a pain in the ass enough to require a tool. And that tool shouldn't cost over 10 dollars and leave you stranded if you lose it.