Paste - What's it all about?

[DonRamos]

I've trawled the search function but have been unable to satisfy my curiosity about Paste.

 

Hopefully you peeps can help

 

1) What do you loose feed whilst using paste

 

2) Is it better to make your own or is the stuff you buy alright

 

3) How do you hook it

 

4) Does it stand up to casting.

 

Any answers to the above would be hugely appreciated.

 

Don

[Alan Stubbs]

1) Yes - I usually press some hemp into my paste and loose feed hemp and maggot.

 

2) At least you know what goes into your own

 

3) Either on the hook's shank or hair rigged to a coil

 

4) Not mine! I fish it at no more than 2 rod lengths. If it's moulded around a paste coil it can be, but whether it's worth it is debatable.

[Andy Macfarlane]

1: The usual free offerings..maggots, corn, casters etc.

2: I've always made my own. I've never bought a bit of paste yet...(except a bit of putty from a rather dodgy looking character on a salmon river many moons ago)

3: I normally just mould it round the hook and shape it to resemble a ball, a bit of corn or a maggot. If the paste doesn't hold the hook too well or if a big cast is required, I take a bit of spring from a pen and cut it to the length of the hook shank and slide it onto the hook. This helps hold the paste together.

4: It does if you use a spring, as mentioned above.

[waddis]

Ive been using paste wrapped around a floating dry expander pellet for carp fishing on a lake where boilies are banned and it has worked a treat for me. I did 36 hours at the lake and took 21 carp to 11lbs when noone else was catching.

The paste that i use is available at www.thebaitmaster.co.uk

[Dick Dastardly]

Good to see you back DonRamos been some time!

[nodding dog]

paste fishing ya can't beat it matey, i rarely fish anything other than paste for bream nowadays!feeder, straight lead or pole, keep it simple big ball of paste on a hair mate fished over soft 3mm trout/halibut pellets, deadly! get a tin of sardines in sunflower oil, mash them up in a bowl with a fork add an egg(the egg gives it gutts)mix the egg with the sardine mush then slowly add ground up pellet a bit at a time until its soft and doughy, need it with your hands for a bit mould it into a ball and keep it in an air tight bag while using mate. fish a ball the same size as the top half of your thumb on a paste spring hair rigged over the pellet matey! if you don't bag on that i'll eat my undies! tightlines mate!

[Vagabond]

Looks like the art of paste making that stays on the hook without hair rigging/springs etc is on the way to being lost. I have never had trouble getting paste to stay on the bare hook.

 

...and you don't have to resort to hard pastes to do that -

 

Really expert paste makers (guys much better at it than me) could get very soft pastes to adhere to the hook. As someone once said to the late Peter Stone re his breadpaste for bream "Fish don't eat your paste, Stoney, they drink it!"

 

Crumble some day-old white bread in an old but clean piece of cotton rag (old cotton sheets are a good source) wet the bread, then twist the rag tightly around the bread, pound it, work at it with your fingers, squeeze it until all surplus water has been squeezed out - then pummel it some more. The result will adhere to a bare hook.

 

You can add flavourings at the wetting stage, or grated cheese etc to make a variety of flavoured bread pastes. Adding some Shippam's salmon and shrimp, crab, or bloater paste is good too.

 

[ 18. August 2005, 03:47 PM: Message edited by: Vagabond ]

[A Worm OOE]

The latest trend in paste fishing with the pole is to use a paste so soft that it will disolve in 5-10 minutes. The paste is used to catch carp that are gill feeding ie drinking the groundbait that is fed. The hook just gets sucked up with the mush.

[nodding dog]

i don't have problems myself with paste staying on a bare hook try chucking 50 yards though with paste moulded just around the hook! its a no go these paste aids are made to help such instances and more bream are to be had at distance than close in, personal preference i like the hook showing you hook more fish, tight lines!

[Andy Macfarlane]

Simple paste:

 

Take 2 slices of day old white bread and make a sandwich with the flavouring of your choice. I've used jam, marmalade, preserves, just tried mustard and it works well, meat spreads, fish pastes, marmite, bovril, honey, golden syrup, molasses, liquidised sweetcorn etc. etc.

Put the sandwich in the blender and blitz at full speed until the sandwich has been broken down into a loose/dryish crumb.

Now add any other additives you wish to include. Not too much mind. A little squirt of 'Van Den Eynde Liquid Corn' for instance goes a long way.

Check the crumb. It should be slightly moist to the touch and it should be forming a loose dough.

Now beat an egg yolk and introduce that to you mixture a little at a time. half a yolk should be enough. The egg simply acts as a binder.

Now add any food colouring you wish. Red and yellow seem to be pretty universal.

Take the mixture and put it in a sandwich bag. Knot it and leave it somewhere warm overnight to 'mature'.

In the morning you should have a paste resembling play-dough. Take a pinch and roll it on the palm of your hand. It should form a stiff ball without much fuss.

Stick it on a hook and cast.