PVA is a water-soluable material that dissolves in water. Its become popular for carp fishing becuase it allows you to deliver a perfect package of bait with your baited rig when you cast out. It comes in bags, mesh, tape and string. I personally like the mesh, because you can create custom-sized bait packages. The string is good too, you can make "stringers" of boilies to tie onto your hook. Over the last few years I have relied more and more on pva as a staple in my carp fishing arsenal.

The type of bait you can put in pva is endless, but it can't be too wet. What is cool though, is that oil will not melt pva, so you can use an oil to ensure the bags won't melt to quick. For example, you could coat sweet corn in peanut oil and put it in a bag. I use a range of ingredients - maize, chopped tiger nuts, pidgeon feed, grits, oats, bread crumb, crushed boilies, powdered fat free milk and more - in my bags. A really simple, but effective combonation is sweet corn with the juice drained out and dry oatmeal.

Sweet corn, oats and mullberry flavoring

Maize and pidgeon feed drying out in a mesh carp sack

Dried up (enough) maize/pidgeon feed ready for pva bags

The PVA mesh is basically a stocking that is fitted on a plastic tube. You tie a knot in the end of the mesh, fill up the tube with your bait of choice, tightly pack it with a plunger, and then push the mesh stick out, and tie off the other end.

All the necessary tools - plunger, filled pva tube, and long stringer needle

Fill the tube with bait.

Push the plunger down and compact the bait - usually I hold the plunger with one hand, and cover the bottom of the tube with my other hand to compress the bait as tightly as possible. Once you think the bait is compressed tightly enough, take your hand off the bottom and press out the bait into the mesh stocking. Pull additional stocking off to tie it in a knot snug against the top of mesh stick. Then tie another knot, and clip it off in-between the knots.

Slide the long stringer needle through the length of the completed mesh stick.

Your hook length should have a loop tied at the other end, so you can hook the stringer needle, and pull the hook length all the way through the mesh stick.

Then you adjust the mesh stick, making sure it is snug against the hook and no bait in the stick is covering the point of the hook. Clip the hook length back onto the rig. I like to use quick change snap swivels.

A closer look

What I like to do when I am fishing a longer, or even short session is have a bunch of hook lengths tied and a bunch of pva mesh sticks prepared. I will get them all baited and ready, so when I need to recast after I catch a fish, all I have to do is change the hooklength with a fresh pva stick on it. and I am ready to cast out again.

I get all of my PVA products from www.resistancetackle.com, and I also get my saftey clips, and quick change swivels from there. Andy at Resistance has great prices!

If you want to see this in a video, check out this clip from Delaware Valley Outdoors: here. The PVA instructions start at the 4 minute mark.