How to push your hookbait away from your bait with precision

My new favourite is critically sinking my bottom bait hookbaits using PVA tape and a sacrificial 12mm pop-up. I have been using a fluorocarbon hooklink straight through to the Hair and use a slow sinking, hardened hookbait; it’s not a wafter or critically-balanced hookbait, the hookbait sits on the bottom.

My tub of 12mm soft pop-ups and my PVA tape stays watertight in the pot too

With the hookbait on the Hair, I use a 12mm pop-up to balance the rig. (The pop-ups I buy are soft and spongy, never going hard like biscuits). I cut the pop-up, removing one-third with scissors and push the pop-up straight onto the point of my hook. The rig is tested in the margins, nibbling tiny pieces off with my nails, aiming for the whole hooklink to sink very slowly, kicking away from the lead.

The hook point is pushed directly into the pop--up and tested for buoyancy in the margins

I then remove the pop-up from the point and pull PVA tape through it with a gated baiting needle. This leaves a ‘U’ shape protruding out of the pop up. I simply pierce the hook point through the PVA loop. The PVA protects the point, as the point faces upwards when the rig settles on the lakebed and then gently turns round after the PVA melts off.

The hook point is pushed through the PVA loop, keeping the point protected, and the hooklink can push slowly away from the lead before the PVA melts, leaving a perfect presentation

The hooklink pushing away from the lead is something I always did with my Hinged Stiff Link, and this bottom bait version has been devastating since I’ve used it. You CANNOT achieve these mechanics with a PVA nugget.