Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
Lee Newson
Rethink your paste fishing
IF YOU straight hook corn or maggots or place a hard pellet in a band, you can be confident the bait will stay in place. At least until you get a bite!
But when it comes to fishing paste many anglers don’t have that confidence. There’s always that niggling doubt as to whether it is still moulded around the hook.
That uncertainty leads to anglers regularly shipping in to rebait and, let’s be honest, you really don’t know if the paste was still hooked because it comes off the moment you lift the rig.
In order to feel sure it remains hooked, most mix their paste fairly stiff. Lee Newson, however, reckons this is a bad move.
Instead, he takes what many consider a big gamble in using an ultra- sloppy paste. In fact, it’s so sloppy that at first glance it would appear to be no use as a hookbait.
“The carp in commercials have seen every trick in the book and if you place a hard piece of paste in front of them, they know what is going on,” said Lee.
“You’d still catch smaller carp that are more naïve but the bigger fish will be far more cautious of it. In order to fool them I use a really sloppy paste that looks like mush. At first I didn’t believe it could possibly stay on the hook but having taken numerous weights up to 300lb on it, I know it works.”
Rig dynamics
One of the most important aspects of fishing with sloppy paste is setting your rig correctly. If the rig is fished at dead depth, the float places a certain amount of resistance on the hook. The result when using sloppy paste is that it is ripped out instantly. To prevent this, Lee plumbs his rig so that he is fishing 2in overdepth.
By keeping the rig dead still, the hook remains in the middle of the mushy paste, even if it does break down off the hook. The fish hoover up the mush, sucking up the hook at the same time.
“As long as the float stays in the same place, I will happily leave the rig in place for up to five minutes. It takes confidence to do this but I’ve lost count of the number of fish I have caught just moments before shipping in. The mushy paste looks like bait that has been in the water for an age and the fish feel safe feeding on it,” he said.
Lee’s rig comprises 0.20mm mainline to a 0.16mm hooklength and a size 12 hook.
He uses a homemade paste float with a large tip and a plastic stem that has a single No. 8 shot beneath to cock it.
It is also held on the line entirely by rubbers because using a traditional pattern with an eye can lead to the line wrapping round the stem, creating resistance on the hookbait as it falls through the water. It is important to dot the float down as, contrary to belief, the bites can be extremely shy on this tactic.
Place the hookbait in a small cup and drop in close to the water
Ideal depth
This is an approach that works best in the margins and it is important to search for shallow water when plumbing up.
“I have found that 3ft is the deepest that you can use it but at this time of year I will ideally look for around 18in,” encouraged Lee.
“If the swim was any deeper the paste would almost certainly fall off the hook on the way down and disperse. Your hook wouldn’t be in the middle of the slop and you would almost certainly fail to get a bite.”
Stick sweetcorn or maggot on the hook and you can ship the rig out traditionally without any fear of it falling off. The soft nature of paste means this isn’t possible, though, and a unique approach is required.
“I have a small cup on the end of my top kit and I place the hookbait in this. I ship out and then cup it in close to the water.”
The paste is extremely sloppy and is unlikely to mould on to the hook properly. Lee takes a nugget of paste, places it in the pot and then puts the hook in the middle of it all. Once cupped in, a large cloud appears and you’d almost certainly think it had come off – but have faith and results will come your way.
Cheap tactic
It can be tempting to pile in bait to get as many fish in the swim as possible but it works best to do the opposite when fishing paste.
“If you have lots of carp in the swim they will knock the rig, moving the hook out of the sloppy paste. Once that happens you won’t get a bite.
“The aim is to draw in just one or two fish at a time and you can do that by keeping the amount of bait you feed to a minimum.”
Each time Lee ships in or misses a bite, he is leaving a blob of paste which effectively becomes loosefeed. If he feels the need to top up he introduces a pinch of micro pellets, often by hand if he is missing close enough.
Micros are better than 4mm and 6mm versions as they create less noise, reducing the number of fish likely to be attracted.
Lee showed during a session at Alders Farm in Milton Keynes that having confidence and believing you will get a bite worked a treat. More than 80lb of carp came in three hours, most of them bigger than the venue average.
“Most of the fish in here are around 3lb but most have been 5lb- plus today. That isn’t a coincidence – this is exactly what happens when you turn to sloppy paste.
“It will take time to get full confidence in fishing with such a mushy hookbait but stick with it and watch your results improve in no time at all,” concluded Lee.