Are you confident your rig isn't tangled? | Quest Baits Blog

Are you confident your rig isn’t tangled?

December 14, 2009 samantha 7 comments

After carefully going through the procedure of locating the fish, making the rig and selecting the best bait we cast our lines out and wait. Sometimes though it is hard to be confident that the rig is positioned properly and the hook is not snagged.

A good method to initially mask the hook is to fold a piece of PVA foam around it knowing then that it won’t get snagged on its descent to the lake bed and will dissolve a few seconds later. The hook will be held off the bottom of the lake until the foam dissolves and will then gently settle into position. When fishing over a bed of silt PVA foam will ensure that when the lead embeds itself into the bottom the hook will not also be masked.

If you are casting a fair distance the PVA foam may not withstand the cast if attached or folded around the hook. Another way around this is to put a couple of foam pieces into some funnel web and compress them to make a small PVA bag. Then attach this to you hook prior to casting to create a similar effect.

Best wishes, Samantha.

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Written by Ron Key about 4 years ago.

Great tip Samantha. I’m convinced that 9 times out of 10 my PVA comes off the hook on impact with the water and doesn’t help at all with presentation. It looks like the PVA mesh will solve that

Thanks Ron
Written by Elie G about 4 years ago.

Great tip Sam,

As you say, more often than not a piece of foam just wrapped around a hook on its own will come off either on impact with the water after a cast or soon after, rarely making it to the bottom.

I like to wrap some PVA tape around my foam to get a similar effect to what you have described. For added attraction, I use a variation on this method: make a stick mix or put some Maximum Action pellets into some PVA mesh then push a foam nugget inside. Compress the lot with a plunger/stick and then tie off. I add this to the hook before casting and it takes anywhere between 20 and 40 seconds to dissolve. It’s amazing how many pellets one squashed PVA foam nugget will keep buoyant.

Happy fishing

Elie
Written by Spencer about 4 years ago.

Hi Sam, Great tip. I’ve recently had a problem with my foam not melting properly. The way I solved it was to do the same as you, putting it in some pva stocking mesh. The Nugget was not actually placed over the hook just the pva stocking which reliably melted. Sorted! Quite often use four or five pieces in a stocking too. I can cast this into a hole in the weed nicely which also acts as a marker once the stocking melts.
All in all a superb product I cant imagine not having these days. Beware the non melting stuff though……
Written by shaun about 4 years ago.

Nice tip. What I tend to do myself to mask the hookpoint and distribute a little visual stimulation near the bait is utilise the Micro Feed in a stocking mesh. In deep water I double mesh it by simply twisting the end instaed of knotting it then reversing it back up the tube.

You can stick the hook straight into the Micro Feed and you won’t mask the hook point in it.
Written by Jamie Simpson about 4 years ago.

I cut down the length of the foam about half the nugget length. I then put the hook point into the uncut section with the shank of the hook through the slot and then just dampen it back together trapping the hair inline. This prevents the hair wrapping around the shank of the hook on a subtle hair. I am confident does not come off the hook until the rig has been on the bottom for a while. it can be a little surprising how strong the foam can be when used this way.

Thanks

Jamie
Written by shaun about 4 years ago.

The type of dissolving foam makes a big difference to the rate it melts. As we all know now the dissolving foam is actually produced as bio defradeable packaging. The pale brown stuff comes off reaL fast and if tasted it resembles a sugar puff! No guesses as to what they are produced from.

The type that dissolves the slowest is the pure white or coloured ones and their dissolve rate can be reduced by giving them a fine mist of water from an atomiser which shrinks and toughens the foam.
Written by Jamie Simpson about 4 years ago.

I personally avoid the used packaging stuff as I don’t know it’s history and what it may have contained previously. I have received plenty of equipment at work in boxes and the packaging can have oil residue etc on it which i don’t want around my hookbait. Alot of it gets used when we send things elsewhere so I can only imagine that other companies will do similar. For this reason I stick to the Solar and Gardner foam. Again it is just a personal preference and may or may not make any difference to my catch rate.

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