If your tackle bag is anything like mine it’s stuffed with all kinds of old crap that at some time I imagined might be useful for fishing.


Cut along the edge of a rule…….
There are all manner of bits of plastic tubing, sheet, old lolly sticks. It’s like a recycling bin, my rucksack. It’s a rare occasion that I actually find any use for all this junk, but I cheerfully cart it from venue to venue nonetheless, hoping that one day my squirreling will be justified. And one day, two years ago, it was.

I’d been sent a promotional mouse mat which had delaminated itself on receipt, leaving me with a picture of someone’s factory and a sheet of black, closed-cell foam plastic. Ah, that’ll be handy, I thought, and stuffed it into my rucksack. That was about four years ago.

Then came the fateful day when, tackling a weedy gravel pit, I needed some expanded polystyrene to ‘stuff’ a deadbait so it would pop up. Usually there’s loads of it washed up like a line of detergent foam along the shoreline. Not this time. So I started rummaging to find a substitute. I found the mouse mat.

Try as I might I couldn’t find an easy way to stuff bits down the neck of my deads, and then a light bulb pinged over my balding pate and I came up with this idea.

How to make Lifebelts


……with a very sharp knife
I cut a strip of foam plastic about four inches long, then superglued it end-to-end like a belt. I tried slipping it over the deadbait like a lifebelt. It didn’t fit. So I cut another, and another, until I’d made one which lodged securely round a mackerel tail.

To cut a long story short, it buoyed the bait up beautifully and I caught a couple of doubles on the baits. For the next two or three sessions, I made a dozen or so lifebelts in differing sizes, and now I wouldn’t be without them.

They’re fairly stretchy, so they’ll accommodate a bait that’s near enough the right diameter. They don’t break. They’re easy to trim down with scissors to get a precise, neutral buoyancy bait (which is excellent for deadbait drifting).

I’ve also found that fish oils cling to them nicely, to add a scent trail, and that if you position them carefully they make a superb and secure hookhold for the end treble.


Glue edge
My only concern is that they might not be too gut-friendly should a pike swallow one, though fisheries scientists assure me that pike regurgitate anything they can’t digest, otherwise bits of stick and the like would also cause them problems. Common sense and caution means I make sure my baits are securely attached so I keep losses to a minimum. Alternatively, you could lash the lifebelt to your trace with some wire or nylon for peace of mind.

Two important details. When you’re gluing this stuff it takes a little while to bond to the plastic. But be patient; the resulting joint is very strong. The thinner the film of superglue, the better it joins.

Secondly, make sure you get the right closed-cell foam plastic to do this or the superglue won’t touch it. The rubbery mouse mat material is the very best; if I knew what it is called, I’d take the idea commercial. But you can try a fly-tying material called Plastazote (as I have for the pictures) which comes in sheets and blocks, and several colours. Evo-stik Impact works better to glue this material.

About the Rigs Page

The Rigs Page is a library of features to illustrate all those rigs that will be useful to both beginners and experienced anglers.

The rigs can be extremely simple and well known, or very complicated and little known, it doesn’t matter providing they make some kind of sense and have a really practical application.

It could be a standard running leger rig that a beginner will appreciate seeing in pictures, or a very complicated anti-eject carp rig that the experienced carp angler would like to see.

If you wish to contribute a rig to this section please remember that the emphasis is on illustration rather than words. Good line drawings are fine in the absence of photographs. Please send to graham@fishingmagic.com

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