When fishing crust do you put a shot by the hook?
For what its worth, yes I also sometimes put a shot near the hook but often I dont for the reason you mention, that the flake or Crust will eventually sink on its own accord. it also depends how much you squeeze it as you put it on and you sort of get to know how long its going to stay popped up as such depending on how hard you squeeze.
On some occasions I quite like the idea of a bit of crust starting off boyant and slowly sinking as your "searching" the water as such. Other occasions I dont want it too high and I might put a shot near the hook.
Something I have been doing quite allot of late is to fish flake and crust on very short hooklinks ...2 or 3 inch sort of things so the swivel and the lead act as the weight to hold it down. Keep in mind I usually fish it on tiny link ledgers of 1/8 or 1/4 oz .
One other tactic I use allot is to fish as I mention above , a tiny link ledger of 1/8oz and a bit of boyant flake on the hook. I then cast out into the current and then sort of "bounce" the bait down and round under near bank marginal trees or rafts where the current is more gentle and the lead will settle. This can be deadly and if you get the Crust/lead ratio right you can literally get the bait to settle static miles unders overhanging cover...places you could never reach with a float or conventional lead setup.