Get on these bait bags for barbel!

Crucially, Steve creates PVA bags of freebies, added to his hook to present extra attraction on the river bed.

Complimenting your hookbait with a PVA bag when barbel fishing is just as important as it is when you are targeting carp – especially when fishing single hookbaits away from feeders.

PVA bags add a nice little bit of extra attraction and will massively help fish to home in on your hookbait. 

With the majority of barbel fishing taking place in fast flowing waters, it can pay to vary the size and shapes of the baits you put into your bags.

Break ’em up – and add pellets

When boilie fishing, a useful little tip can be to break up some freebies into various shapes and sizes, by doing so you will find that the flow spreads these at various points downstream, creating a trail of not only food, but more importantly scent.

The addition of various size halibut pellets can also be wise and will further more increase the attractiveness of the hookbaits ‘zone’.

However, halibut pellets can be a little too attractive to bream, so if these are prolific in the stretch you are fishing, it may be wise to stick to whole and broken boilies.

Even though crushed boilies are more than likely to be washed downstream a lot more quickly, they will still give off plenty of aroma and bring the fact that there is a free meal further upstream to the fishes’ attention.

Steve Pope uses a Korda Krusha to grind down his boilies. He’s on new Crave baits from Dynamite Baits.

Into the dissolving PVA mesh it goes, before tieing and cutting to form a small bag of attraction, attached to the hook.