It's All In The Bag!

For me like many other anglers, Solid Bags have never been a  firm favourite of mine until recently.  Sometimes labelled as a “small fish” tactic, they can be a pain to tie when it’s raining and as frustrating as hell if you bugger up the cast. However,  if you can put all of the “negative’s” to the back of your mind they really are a winning tactic.Solid Bags can be fished a number of different ways, cast to showing fish, over a bed of bait or fished into weed for a near guaranteed perfect presentation. Any PVA friendly liquids can also be added boosting your bags to the limit.

My love for the humble PVA Bag was re-ignited whilst sitting on the banks of the famous Horton Church lake. For anyone who isn’t familiar with Church, it’s around 15 acres in size with an average depth of about 17 feet. The undertows are a total nightmare at times, with your lines being pulled in the total opposite direction. Add the depths and undertow to the sheer volume of weed in the lake and you start to question your rig presentation more than ever. Spodding your bait out or dropping it with a spoon is all perfectly fine, but when you have such depths and undertows I was really starting to question my accuracy, even though I’m really particular with my spots and placement. I’ve witnessed it many times before on rivers when there is barely any undertow, but when you throw a handful of mixed baits in, it separates instantly. Whole baits that are heavier drop the quickest, with items such as hemp being a long way off the spot in relatively shallow water. Imagine what is actually happening in 17 feet of water when the undertow and crosswind comes into play.

For me the answer to my concerns was simple, Solid Bags. I can present this method over the various types of weed including the silk weed which the Horton carp love. Fishing over a baited area, I know that my hookbait has got a little mouthful of attraction around it and I can easily cast a bag or ship one out with a baiting spoon if I wish to showing fish. When casting Solid Bags in a decent crosswind I find them so much easier to cast accurately than a standard rig presentation due to the weight in the bag. The average small Solid Bag weighs between 4 and 5 ounces so when you hit the clip in a crosswind it removes the bow and straightens your line effortlessly meaning your line lay and presentation is spot on.

The only thing you do need to be mindful  of, is that your tackle is up to the job before you start giving it the “biggun”.  For 90% of my fishing I use my 13ft rods and my Basia’s are loaded with the new Hydro-Sink Noir braid, this stuff is as tough as old boots and sinks like a brick burying itself into the lakebed. To this I have a length of Mirage Fluorocarbon Leader to aid presentation and to give me a bit of a cushion when playing a fish. I use a meter of Camflex Leadfree Leader, firstly for fish protection as I’m not a big fan of fishing things “naked” but secondly, I like to get things pinned down as much as possible.  As Church is a weedy lake I always fish my 3oz in-line leads, drop off style, so that once hooked, the fish drops the lead and gets into the upper water layers as quickly as possible.  My hooklink comprises of three inches of Trickster Heavy which is super tough but also sinks like a brick too. Unlike most people who use Solid Bags, I don’t like using a small hook.  I’m fishing for big fish that weigh in excess of 50lb so I want something strong and reliable that won’t let me down.  For me this can only be a size four hand sharpened Mugga. This might sound like a big hook for a  PVA Bag but it certainly hasn’t let me down and the hook holds have been spot on.

When it comes to what goes in the bag, there is only one option for me as I have so much confidence when it comes to anything bait orientated. The bulk of my bag comprises of the Tails Up 3in1 Nut Monsta pellet. Hookbait options are also a simple choice too which is two pieces of yellow Cornz, soaked in my all-time favourite flavour. I also don’t construct my bags the “standard“ way either, as I don’t put my bait in first. I like to add a small amount of pellet first before dropping the lead in, placing it hard against one side. I then add more pellet before placing the hookbait into the bag against the opposite side to the lead and then top up with a few more pellets. I keep my lead against one side of the bag as I know that the bag will land lead side first every time without fail meaning my hookbait is always on top presented perfectly. Once tied with the corners stuck down, I give the bag a good dose of Nut Monsta extract to give it a final boost. I have tested countless Solid Bags in tanks of water at home with various different techniques but for me this is the one that seems to work the best. Like I said before I’m very particular with things, my wife likes to say I’m anal about stuff but there you go, to me the small percentages all add up in my eyes.

Going back to one of the first comments about how solid bags are a small fish tactic and I can honestly say it’s just another myth.  I’ve caught well using this method with fish up to 43lb so I’d hardly say its “small” fish tactics.  Like any method of fishing whether it’s a Chod, a Spinner or any other rig for that matter, you will always pick up small fish as no rig is guaranteed to only catch you big fish.  Some of my best captures have in fact been on bags.  A few years ago, while fishing on the St Ives complex I had one of the A-Team members known as “BJ” from The Shallow Lagoon on a solid bag cast to a set of pads.  The lake had been fishing really slow for a bit but I had found some fish patrolling close to an entrance to the out of bounds area. I knew if I could get just a mouthful under their noses I’d stand a good chance of nailing one of them. Winter just gone, saw me make multiple moves around the Church lake trying to get on the few shows that were happening. Eventually after seeing two shows in a familiar area I made yet another move, cast two Solid Bags into the area and not long after I was slipping the net under a pristine 43lb+ mirror, a huge result considering how poorly the lake had been fishing. Just recently I’d decided to fish two bags, very tight, on one spot over some light silk weed in an area I’d seen some activity.  Again, the lake had been fishing fairly slow but over a 24hour period I’d managed to catch 5 fish up to 27lb whilst the rest of the lake remained quiet.

It just goes to show how much pulling power and attraction is in a little Solid Bag and it’s certainly become a firm favourite of mine.