Try small strips of closed cell foam cut to suit.

 and by "thong" I mean the one you put on your feet. Its basically foam and floats very well. Then tie your bait around it using ghost cotton and a hook of course.

Wine/champagne corks

I use closed cell foam , 25mm hole punched... threaded on line above hooks with small split sinker to stop it travelling up away from the bait ...1 piece sufficed for mulies , herring may need a couple fill a container with water and experiment with how it floats rigged up...

Thanks for the tip, really appreciate it. If your using a 3way swivel you would place the material above the bait of the side and run your sinker through the bottom swivel? Would this work for all types of bait or would you need to use more foam depending on bait? 

Thanks

can I ask if this is actually going to help you hook less shark and rays?

we used to add foam back in pommyland to avoid getting crabs (bait stealing ones) , but do you think it'll fool a ray or shark??

 It can prevent a ray from hitting a tailor bait moved slowly, which happens,  but if it is a larger bait for a mulloway, I have had rays take a bait near the surface. 

Haha ive even caught a eagle ray on a balloon at woodies rock wall lol

Hi Abz,

Try this out (standard bottom trace for tailor -aka shad- in South Africa):

Replace the 6/0 and wire with gangs.

The cork helps to keep the bait "alive"...

Tight lines

 Thanks everyone for the tips and advices, I'll try them out and I'm sure it will improve my hookup rate with fish I'm chasing. 

Cheers

Abz

Hey guys

How big a piece of foam, cork etc.. Does one need to put to get the right amount of float? Say on garfish or a fillet of mullet or tailor? Or it doesn't really matter since the sinker will be weighing it down. 

Thanks

 It really depends what you will be targetting;

1. Sharks and bigger species; I find that cutting and using a old "boogie" board is great as it is a lot more boient and can "float" a larger piece of bait. I like to cut a long silinder like piece of about 10cm - 15cm long, about 2 / 3 cm thick; butterly to insert the the "eye" of the hook and a section of your trace line. Then use a toothpick to insert this through the foam and through the eye of the hook to hold it in place - then ghost cotton about 30 to 40 times around the foam to keep it in place. 

When adding bait, especially the belly part of bait fish, try and keep it slim and make sure that it covers most of the foam. Add some long thin strands of squid, thin occie strands as tassles, this to improve movement to entice the fish.

(tip; to see how effective the foam might be, tie the foam down and test it in your pool / bucket of water, adding small sinkers to test weight capability.)

2. Smaller eds, cut general foam and design various shapes for the type of fish you will target. Some require a cork like design, others just a block and then for the "shy" fish a thinner smaller foam that you can cover with blob bait. Most of these yu dont need to use toothpicks, just tie it down using the part of the hook eye / shank and your trace. The reason for cutting various shapes and design of foam is to also keep the bait's design to make it look more attractive for the fish. 

Foamed bait examples:

f

Finished flapped out mullet bait for mulloway,

(Thanks to "Trophy")

You'll get good casting distance with this sort of rig. Hook is 6-8/0. Fresh mullet of course. Bait still have to look "natural" therefore shape the foam. the size of foam will depend on hook & bait size. Fresh tailor fillet will work great. If it seems a lot of effort......10% of the anglers catch 90% of the fish.

Tight lines

hi shark tale,

thanks for the info.. appreciate the help.

oh and that image doesnt load up for some reason

Another try for the pics..

(Thanks to Trophy - sealine.co.za)

Squid wrapped around foam and tied with bait cotton, mulie fillets (include belly) wrapped onto squid with bait cotton. The mulie is purely an attractand and is likely to be severed by pickers.

You can't use that code to link an image for two reasons:

1) its not informing the webserver that it is an image file
2) You can't even view that attachment unless you're logged into that sealine website.

Odd...done so in the past using the same process. What do you suggest?