Paste Fishing

 Having posted my blogs on my matches at Viaduct I received a comment from a person called Dave if I could explain how I fish it. Here goes Dave…

Firstly the way I fish paste has not really changed that much since I first tried a long time ago. In fact I remember when I first tried it, it was at Cider Farm Lakes. I was catching well across when my pole roller blew over and my pole snapped, all I could fish now was top set plus two sections. I tried fishing pellet here in the deep water and got plagued with foulers, that made me reach for a paste rig out of frustration. I was amazed how it worked and from a bad situation I think I got third place. That’s the day when I realised it was a method worth exploring.

There are many ways of fishing paste, this is my way and it works for me but there are many variations and it’s all about what you have confidence in. 

Firstly my paste itself, I make mine from Thatchers groundbait. When I get to my peg I tip some dry groundbait in a 3 pint bait tub then cover it with water and mix it in, it will be soupy in texture at this point. Ten minutes before the match have a look at it, if it’s too soggy and you can’t form a ball add a little bit more dry groundbait, if it’s dried out too much add a little water a bit at a time. Hard to explain without showing but I try to avoid to stiff and to sloppy lol.

Next what you feed, it’s simple for me, it’s always 4mm pellets, and I take a bag of Sonubaits pro feed pellets and put them in a bait box. I have fed these pellets straight from the bag, but I’ve also soaked them so they swell up. Skimmers seem to like the soaked pellets but I’ve got them over both. Some people I know have fed 8 to 10 pints of pellets in a match, but the way I feed I’ve generally never fed the whole bag.

My rig is very simple, I use some old Big H paste floats but I’m down to my last two 😢😢. I use 0.21 Powerline as mainline, then attach a hook length from the Preston pre tied 12 XSH to 0.17. You could fish 0.19 but I know that 0.17 won’t break my pole if I hook a fouler. No shot are put on the line.

Plumbing up is very important, with no shot on the line the paste has to set the float. I plumb to have about 3/4 of the bristle showing. But beware, plumbing and then fishing with paste may give a different result, this is due to silt usually, so be prepared to alter the depth first drop, it’s worth getting right. Also as your match progresses you will have to push the float up as feeding fish scour out the silt, so don’t fish too short a line above the float.

Now to get the paste out to your required distance you need a pole pot to put it in. The depth of the venue will have a big impact on where the pot goes. The position of the pot from the end of your pole is important to stop the rig from tangling as you ship out. Too close to the tip and it’s tangle time, too far away and it can make the line too tight and feeding tricky. Now this is important, when you put your initial pot of feed of pellets in with your cupping kit do not ship to the end of the pole. If you do this, then go out with your paste when you tip the paste pot over it will be short of the feed! Last week at viaduct my Preston paste pot down from the end of my pole by about the same length as my dolly butt. When I started I fed the pellets when I got to the end of the normal pole section, then when I shipped out with paste I shipped to the end of the dolly butt, tipped the paste out, then slid the pole back to the end of the normal section so my pole was above the float. It helps if you put the float in the right spot too, otherwise it will sink and only pop up when in the right place. You must avoid lifting the float jerkily, this will knock the paste off  the hook.

Now the fun part begins, trying to hit the bites. With carp you are looking for a very positive bite, a very fast movement on the float, usually the float disappears in a blink of the eye. Slow movements are usually liners and the float can go out of sight and reappear, if it’s sits well then it was a liner, if the float pops right up like the paste has come off then strike. It’s either a bite or the paste did come off.

Skimmers often but not exclusively give lovely lift bites. They can cause lots of liners and some are even bites sometimes, it’s suck it and see. Some days you have spells you pull your hair out missing bites, there’s not much you can do to change things other than how you feed. Obviously this is the hard part, sometimes big potting top ups are great, and other times filling your paste pot with feed pellets is great.

The size of your paste is again trial and error, I have used pea size up to a big 50p piece, but generally start on a pear drop size piece. Just get a piece of paste, lay the hook in it and then fold the paste over. I like a flatter end to sit on the bottom and point above the hook.

I think that about covers it, like everything else you do need to practice it. You can get some serious fizzing over your feed when fishing paste, when only odd carp are coming in sometimes you literally can watch the fizz heading towards your float, it’s quite entertaining especially when the float whacks under. I hope you can catch a few on the paste, like everything else it has its place on certain days.