UK Coarse
The Bait Room · Commercial / modern
Soft, moulded hookbait for the pole and the edge. Carp and F1s in the margins, and a bait that hides the hook.
Paste is a mix — often fishmeal or a ready paste — moulded around the hook so the fish sucks bait and hook together. It is a margin and pole bait, not something you hit 80 yards with a 3oz method.
It comes off. That's the deal. You fish close, you ship out carefully, and you rebait often. In the edge, late, it can be the difference between liners and a fish.
From the graph
Technique
Margin fishing
The edge bait
Technique
Margin pole
The edge bait
Technique
Paste fishing
Mixed from fishery pellet
Technique
Pole fishing
Margins and the deck
Technique
Pole on the deck
A plumbed pole rig with the bait on the bottom. F1s, carp, silvers and canal fish that want it still, not falling.
Technique
Margin feeder
If it will stay on
Commercial margins. Pole on the deck for F1s and carp. Warm water. Last hour.
Best in the warm. Less of a frost bait, though a tougher paste has its days.
Moulded round a wide-gape hook, pole or a short margin rod. On the deck, tight to the wall or the reeds.
Mix to a consistency that stays on for a ship-out but is still soft. Too tough and they don't take the hook; too sloppy and it's gone at 4m.
Feeding
A small tub. You will waste some. That's normal.
Every drop-in, because it comes off. That's the method.
Micros, 4mm pellets, a bit of corn.
Paste over pellet. Meat if paste is getting robbed. Corn when you need something that stays on.
A little matching pellet or a few nubs of paste. Don't dump a bowl in the edge at lunchtime.
Casting paste 40 yards. Mixing it like concrete. Fishing it on 4 elastic in a snaggy edge.
If it won't stay on, go meat or corn. If they're not in the edge, don't paste the open water for two hours.
Beginner tip
A ready-made commercial paste, size 14, top 3 of a pole, last 90 minutes, against the wall.
Advanced tip
Two consistencies: sloppy for a fast bite, firmer if small fish peck. Change before you blame the peg.