ADTV Carp Chapters - Solid PVA Bag Tactics With Henry Lennon

Similar to a PVA Mesh Bag, a solid PVA Bag is perfect for introducing a small pile of bait to the fish with your hookbait right in the centre of it. But why use solid PVA bags over mesh PVA bags?

There are two situations where I will favour solid PVA bags over mesh PVA bags, and these are firstly when the lakebed is a little bit weedy, as when a solid PVA bag melts, it will present your rig and hookbait perfectly on top of any sort of weed. The second situation is when I’m fishing in deep water and need to make sure that my PVA bag reaches the bottom in tact before breaking down, and in extreme depth, I would even go as far as using two PVA bags to guarantee perfect rig presentation.

As with all my carp fishing, to make the most of a method, you need to make sure that you have your rigs in the right spot, because if there are no carp in the area it does not matter how effective your rig is as it will not make any difference!

Fishing with solid PVA bags is no different, and both myself and Henry have made a couple of tours on the lake upon arrival with the polaroids on. It was quickly apparent with the scorching weather that the fish were more interested in a bit of sunbathing, but as Toll Pits is an irrigation reservoir the water is quite clear and we soon found a shoal of fish feeding in the margins, clouding up the water. This is a perfect scenario for solid pva bags as when fishing for a quick bite, you can accurately introduce just enough bait in an incredibly small area to trigger a bite! 

For rigs, I like to keep my rigs quite simple when fishing solid PVA bags, starting with a short supple hooklink of only 3-4 inches long. My go to hookbait for this method is a small wafter so I match this to a small size 8 hook with a little bit of tubing over the eye of the hook and a little split shot on the actual hooklength, as I find that this helps turn the hook and catch in the fish’s mouth better when they suck the bait in.

My lead choice is a Nash Inline Drop Off Lead, and with this rig, I want to ensure that the lead drops off super-fast as it makes it easier to land fish when using short hooklinks as the fish hasn’t got a heavy lead banging close to the hook on the fight. So, to drop the lead quickly, all I do is push the swivel with the hooklink on the end into the actual lead and then put the tubing over the tail rubber, so that if I give it a pull at both ends the lead falls off immediately.

When fishing with solid PVA bags, I will always start with small food items, sticking to a mix of 2mm pellets, 6mm pellets and boilie crumb made from some 12mm boilies which I have crushed using my fingers so there is a variety of sizes. One of the advantages of using a mix of bait sizes, is that it will keep the fish pre-occupied for longer, whilst the fine particles in your PVA bag is it helps to protect the hook point.

One trick, I will do later on in the session is to introduce more boilies, as this can trigger more bites, however the maximum size of boilies I will introduce is 12mm as I find boilies of 15mm and larger will create too many air spaces in the PVA bag which will effect the aerodynamics of the PVA bag when casting and also affect the breakdown rate when it is in the water.

For making the perfect solid PVA Bag, I find that the Nash Speedload PVA Bag System makes this incredibly quick and easy. To use it, take it out of the blue collar and place the black tube in over that blue collar. Then grab your solid bag, open it up and pass over the blue collar and the collar will expand so you’ve got a nice tight bag to work with. Place your rig in, putting your hookbait in first, and make sure to put it on one side of the PVA bag, as on the opposite side I put the lead. This ensures that it always lands lead side down and that your hookbait is top of the pile, increasing the hooking capability of the rig.

Trap the lead in position with the little groove and make sure not to fill the bag all the way up. I find best to have some bait at the bottom, hookbait, with the lead halfway up and another layer at the bait sandwiching it all together. This leaves the top 1/3 free so I will then tap the bag down before a quick twist and lick to stick it down. I also like to give the PVA bag a few stabs with a baiting needle to allow any air to escape and this ensures that the PVA bag does not explode on impact. 

Sitting back and watching the fish still churning up the bottom, it wasn’t long till one of the rods was away with a lovely little common carp. After this though, the fishing became incredibly difficult and although we could see fish in the margins, the fish were incredibly spooky.

So, to keep in touch with the fish, we have kept with a mobile approach, with just the rods, bank sticks, net and a bucket almost chasing the fish around the lake, as they were quick to back off even when quietly lowering the rigs in. The margins are still quite deep at 5ft, so although we can see fish swimming around, the main issue was the fish were still quite a distance away from the hookbait, so it was a case of waiting for one to get on the bait.

Despite, the difficult fishing, between myself and Henry we have managed to get a few takes by keeping on the move, with Henry catching a few small carp and myself getting a couple of takes, but losing both fish!

After an unsuccessful night for both of us, it was back to chasing the fish, looking for any signs of activity to try and nick another bite or two. Finding a few fish feeding in one of the bays, it did not take long for my rod to scream off, and although it was only a small ‘pastie’ common, it shows how quick this method works. Luckily, Henry has broken the run of small carp with a lovely mirror carp to end our trip on a high.

Despite the difficult conditions, we have managed to get several bites, where a lot of other carp fishing methods would have struggled to get a single bite so, hopefully, this shows how effective this method can be. So give it a go on your next carp fishing trip and see how good it is for yourself!