PVA Products Comparison Part 1 ...Most anglers will look at PVA on the shelves in their local tackle shop, and automatically go for the cheapest or the type that they have always used. For most general purpose situations, there is nothing wrong with doing this, but when you start looking more closely at the different sorts of PVA products available, you could be doing yourself a big disadvantage in using the wrong PVA product for a particular task. Due to a lot of confusion over the different products, UKMA are working on putting together a “one shot” guide to how the different types of PVA perform in the water, and how they can be used to make the most of a session. This guide will follow in Part Two of this feature, but to start, Part One is an Introduction to some of our favourite PVA materials that we use here at UKMA. Kryston Advanced Angling Products Meltex RangeDave Chiltern and Kryston have always been at the forefront of hooklinks and the development of the business end of the terminal tackle, and the range of Meltex “PVA” products is nothing different in regards to pushing forward. The “PVA” used in the Meltex range is different to other “PVA” in that it is a material called PVOH. The range is also of a double embossed texture that allows very easy opening of the solid bags and also allows for much higher strength without lengthening breakdown time. The Meltex sheet is also quite stretchy so bags can easily be pulled tight without the sheet or the seams bursting open. Using a tight bag will allow better casting and also a better spread of bait once the sheet has dissolved. The seams on the Meltex products are set at 10mm width which gives just the right amount of strength to make the tight bags without the bait ending up in your lap. Kryston have also put a lot of thought into the dimensions of the bags that are in their range, and have catered for almost every single eventuality that PVA can be used for. All of the Kryston bags have a no-stick or cling finish to them which makes opening them up on the bank to fill an absolute doddle. The range of Kryston Meltex solid bags are as follows:Snak Pax (50mm x 85mm) available in packs of 20 (£2.99) or 60 (£5.99) packs The Snak Pax , Slim Jims & Mini Rockets are perfect for long range work with pellets or broken boilies, and the bags can be stretched to be literally rock solid when packed so that there is less air drag on the cast. The Super Rockets are ideal for all work other than extreme distance, where as the Super Tubes are perfect for concealing the whole rig & lead arrangement inside along with the bait for dropping into weedbeds or on top of other detritus. To fully compliment the range of solid bags, Kryston also market PVA tape in two different widths (10mm (£2.50) & 20mm (£3.50) on 20m spools) that is constructed from the same strong PVA as the solid bags are. This tape is probably the most versatile PVA tape that we have used at UKMA, and is the first choice for us when stringers are required. We have cast strings of 5 18mm baits well in excess of 100 yards using this tape simply hooked once through the tape with no worries about it tearing on the cast. For those that prefer a traditional PVA string, Kryston also have the Molecular Meltdown PVA String. This is a traditional braided string that has a medium dissolve time in all temperatures, but has the unique feature of leaving no residue that some cheaper strings suffer from. No more retrieving rigs to find globules of “snot” on the bait, hook or rig. To alleviate the problem of residue, the way the string has been braided allows the water to attack the PVA from within the core of the fibres rather than from just the outside. Another top notch product from Kryston that has little competition in this area. Nash Tackle PVA ProductsThe team at Nash have really gone to town on the already saturated PVA market and have launched a range of superb PVA products that are not just the same as everybody else’s range. It would have been easy for Kevin and the team to just bring out the same products under the Nash banner, but that was just not good enough. As Nash have got a wide range of PVA products, I will start with the products that others have not got in their ranges.
One of the hardest things with solid PVA bags is getting them to stay open whilst loading them up. There are a few funnel style products that can be used for loading bags, but these all entail putting the baits in by hand, which can lead to contaminated baits. Nash have thought about this and have got the ideal solution in their Bag Filla tools. Essentially the Bag Filla tools are a piece of plastic that has been coiled so that when inserted in to the neck of a bag, it will spring out and hold it securely and open. The best part is that the top is the same size as the bag aperture itself, so it can be scooped into a bucket of bait for super quick loading. Because the Filla tools are not a solid circle in shape, you can also drop your rig into the bag through the tool, and still remove the tool from the bag & line with ease. UKMA thought these were a bit of a gimmick before trying them, but after using them, UKMA reach for these before the bags when preparing for baiting up! Every angler should have these in their PVA pouch without any shadow of a doubt. Another unique PVA product from Nash is the continuous PVA Tube. The continuous tube works in the same way as mesh does, but is easier to work with if you have rough or slightly damp hands. Because it is solid PVA on a tube, there is no laddering upon compressing bait with a plunger or when pulling the product off the loading tube. The solid tube does take a few seconds more to breakdown in the water, but in all honesty, UKMA have not noticed any real difference between using this for sticks over the traditional mesh. Nash have also produced a slightly thicker solid tube system that allows the angler to use slightly damp baits or a few extra seconds to drag back to a feature after casting. UKMA have been using the solid tube system for a while now with baits such as crumb or maggots with great success. We have also been surprised at the number of anglers that we speak to on the bank that did not know that this product was available! Still not satisfied to sit on their laurels, Nash have also released a dedicated fine weave mesh specifically for use with maggots or other smaller baits. The MaggiMesh PVA has a fine structured weave that dos not allow maggots to crawl through after loading, but still allows rapid melting of the PVA once in the water. Available in two diameters (22 & 44mm), both sizes are ideal for small bags that can be cast long distances without any worries of tearing. We all know that PVA bags do stick together at times, especially when we want to get a bait back out quickly, and Nash have come up with a simple, but superb solution to that with the way that they package their solid bags. Rather than to package the separate bags on top of each other, Nash have packaged their solid bags on rolls that you simply tear off a bag as you need it. Coupled with the anti-static finish that the bags have, they open up perfectly every single time for easy & fast loading. Along with the products above, Nash also have the more traditional PVA products in their range including PVA tape, drawstring conical bags and traditional PVA mesh. All in all, if you cannot find the right product in the Nash range, then UKMA don’t know where to find it either! Korda PVASynonymous with PVA products after the highly successful Underwater dvd series, Korda is usually the first make of PVA mesh that anglers pick up in the shop. There isn’t much really that can be written here about the Korda PVA that has not already been written in the media or shown on the dvd’s, but it is only fair to include a paragraph here in this article to say that we are including the range of Korda PVA into our tank tests. UKMA will be putting the string, tape & mesh through our tests to show how it compares to the other products that we are testing as well. ESP PVADrennan market a concise selection of PVA products under the ESP banner, ranging from different ply strings, solid & perforated bags through to mesh on a tube. Most commonly seen on the bank is the mesh due to its superb reliability and price. We have used the ESP mesh for a while here at UKMA and not found it to let us down in any department, and it is a permanent fixture in our PVA collections. The most impressive part of the mesh is that it seems to be the most resilient to laddering of the standard mesh sizes. The Mesh is available in 3 diameters – 20mm, 25mm & 32mm – with the two smaller sizes coming with a graduated plunger in the packaging and the 32mm size being supplied with a very handy rubber scoop that fits to the end of the tube for easy loading of pellets or broken boilies. The solid PVA that ESP produce is amongst the cheapest on the tackle box shelves, and it does not let down in its performance on the bank. The only gripe that we have with it at UKMA is that the bags can be difficult to open without the use of a needle to separate the sheets. Once opened though, they are to class performers. The 4 above ranges are shortly going to be put through a tank test to show the breakdown times, amount of residue left, etc in a range of water temperatures. With the sheer amount of PVA that is going to be put through it’s paces, the second part of this article may take a few months to be completed, but it will be worth the wait at the end of the day.
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