Mine were not cutters. I screwed a very large threaded hook into a piece of doweling that is inside an pool type extension pole. I put screws through the metal pole, into the doweling to secure it and then drilled a hole in the end of the dowel and then screwed the hook into the hole. It works great to snag my pots that have handles, either the plastic ones that came on the buckets or polyester rope that was added to the pots. It also works well on the pots that have a ridge around the top edge. My pond has a ledge so sometimes I slide the pot over to the ledge and ease it to the ledge and then I can pull it out of the pond. Oh and that pole has a toilet cleaner brush on the other end to go after string algae if you don't want to get in the pond.