The Cheese paste revolution.
This
season I have had a fantastic year Chub fishing and looking back through my
catch records, I attribute part of this success to adapting my techniques and
exploring the possibilities using the Laguna SAC products and a brilliant new
product designed by Darren from the Hook Bait Company. The SAC juice product
has some unique properties – not least of which its ability to resist freezing
and has been tested down to temperatures as low as -46 degrees. The Hook bait company?
Their expertise helped to eliminate some nagging doubts using an ‘all-time’
classic Chub bait – Cheese paste!Making the most out of cheese paste.
Winter Chubbing
is synonymous with cheese paste; in fact as soon as the nights start to draw in
and the first early frosts have arrived signalling the onset of winter, I can’t
wait to get my mixing bowl out in anticipation of spending many days and nights
in search of my favourite species. There is no doubt that plain cheese paste is
a fantastic bait. The problem as I see it, it is a victim of its own success –
everybody uses it!
Cheese paste is
both bold in sight and smell and Chub simply adore it. But by association with
capture, they learn to avoid it – or certainly approach it with caution. I am
sure this fear diminishes with time after capture, or is less of an issue in
coloured water – but is certainly worthy of consideration.
It’s quite
interesting to watch the reaction of feeding fish to different baits and
presentation. If a single fish senses danger or uncertainty this fear is
transmitted to any fish in close proximity and it’s as if the whole shoal gets
the message that something is wrong. It can certainly be alarming to place
cheese paste in good swims with chub in them, to return the next day and
observe the same said pieces uneaten!
Does pastry have a role in cheese paste?
Cheese paste is
simply a brilliant paste bait – but made in the traditional way it does have
significant drawbacks. It is possible to reinvigorate cheese paste beyond
recognition with the addition of a few flavours. Better still, this season I
felt I was able to address some of its other failings.
Cheese paste is
dead easy to make, 500g of the ripest vintage cheddar, 600g of Danish blue
cheese and a 450g block of frozen short crust pastry – just as it comes in
packets from the Supermarket. Simply grate all the ingredients, add any
additional flavours at this stage and knead them together to a smooth
consistency.
On reflection, I
am certain the addition of pastry to a cheese paste has perhaps cost quite a
few Chub too. Let’s face it... Cheese paste comes into its own in winter months;
thinking logically, it hardly seems ideal adding more fat!
Does flavouring cheese paste work?
The greatest
part of experimenting with a bait like cheese paste is that for the most part,
you can work on a hunch. I have caught Chub on elderberries, blackberries and
other fruits and have always been surprised how preoccupied they become on such
a low energy food source. Is there something inherently attractive that makes
fruit flavours so effective? I suspect that old Chevin has a surprisingly sweat
pharyngeal tooth.
With this in
mind, I was inspired to experiment with the Laguna SAC juice. It appealed to me
principally because it is actually made from the real thing! Don’t ask me why,
but I was instantly drawn to the banana flavour and promptly ordered a few
bottles. It’s not a highly concentrated flavour and felt that the whole bottle
needed to be used in my first small exploratory batch.
The use of
Banana flavour as a Chub attractor is in-fact nothing new. The earliest
reference I could find to its use specifically for Chub was in-deed Peter Stone
in his forward to the brilliant Chub Study Group book ‘Chub’. It also
transpired that some other rather talented Chub anglers have managed to
capitalise on this rather unusual attractor over the years.
Suffolk Chub go bananas over...... well, banana flavoured cheese paste!
First outing
with a new idea is always a leap of faith and in this instance it was no
different – except for one thing. On this occasion I also had an angling
companion; a competent angler, so the pressure was on. My approach is always mobile. We walked up to
the top of the fishery in order to work our way back to the van. I always like
to start on a ‘confidence’ swim just to anticipate from the fish’s reaction to
what type of day it’s going to be. The plan being to work each swim, leap frogging
back every half hour to an hour or so, to cover as many potential features as
possible.
The first cast fell perfectly just brushing the raft. The
line falls slack; I gently pull back the bait and observe the effect on the tip
of my feeder rod. It feels perfect as it easily trips back a few inches
indicating it had found its resting place on the clear gravel patch.
Introducing a bow in the line, I set the rod on its rest. I like this additional form of indication as
I feel it gives a wary fish a little more confidence under minimal resistance.
I find on slow flowing rivers, if you tighten up to the bait, this results in a
lot of missed bites.
Everything in place, I draw deeply on a cigarette trying
to focus on where the line enters the water. I enter an instinctive and
primitive heightened sense of consciousness, poised to act. A hesitant
twitch!!!! Heart race pulsing, an instant metallic sensation floods my taste
buds... the line tightens and before the tip fully deflects I have pulled into
the first fish of the day; a lively fish of 3lb13oz. I rest it in the net in the margins in
anticipation of another fish. Nearly instantaneously, a second fish fell to the
same presentation of banana cheese paste, at 4lb1oz, a good result for a small
river! The brace was quickly photographed and the fish returned a few meters
upstream to minimise disturbance to the swim.
It is unusual to
get multiple fish from a small swim due to the commotion of playing and landing
a lively Chub, but on this instance I was soon to be admiring a second brace
from the same swim; this time a 4lb2oz
and a stunner at 5lb2oz! Four fish in little under an hour was obviously enough
for this swim; however, I did give it another 40 minutes before moving off
downstream.
After allowing
myself to settle into the next swim, I cast and eventually received a
tentative, twitchy style bite which I allowed to develop before finally
striking into thin air! Now in this instance, this may sound alien to anyone
used to fish a river an appreciable flow, I recast and left the bail arm open
to allow the fish to ‘run’ with the bait under minimal resistance. After about
25minutes, the tip sprung into life and line began stripping off the reel.
Pointing the rod towards the fish, I closed the bail arm, waiting for the tip
to deflect and pulled into the fish, a beautifully conditioned fish of 4lb1oz.
A note of caution regarding this technique; used appropriately I have yet to
land a deep hooked fish, but I would resist using this method other than to
solve the problem of missing bites having first used conventional bite
indication methods.
The session
ended with a ‘red letter’ day tally of 9 fish, 7 over 4lb with the best fish
remaining 5lb2oz; very respectable for can only be described as a small, slow
flowing Suffolk river. My angling companion? A missed bite – and plenty of
action behind the camera – this made for a pleasant change as more often than
not, it works the other way around!
It would have
appeared that on this day, at least, the fish seemed to have a specific liking
for a banana flavoured SAC juice cheese paste over more traditional offerings
of bread and luncheon meat... From my perspective? What a great way to let them
get one of their ‘five’ a day!
The perfect cheese paste?
In many ways,
pastry in a cheese paste is superfluous – it’s just the way I had always made
it... read any chub article and there it is! I have always accepted it as a
bulking component and to a greater extent a binder to produce a paste of the
‘right’ consistency to stay on the hook. Nutritionally, the flour and fat could
be considered a great energy source – but let’s face it, cheese is the secret
ingredient.
Typically,
winter baits would ideally have a low fat/oil content otherwise they tend to
solidify and have reduced flavour leakage. In the coldest of conditions, the
fats in the cheese and pastry turn an otherwise soft pliable paste into a hard
lump that I am certain has cost fish due to impeding the hook on the strike.
Considering
these concerns, it was during a conversation with good friend Darren McCann
from the Hook Bait Company that he suggested he may have the perfect solution.
A new product based on his successful ‘Milk-pro’ base mix. The benefits of
using a milk protein base are more than evident – highly soluble and attractive
to chub. Better still when Darren mentioned he had devised a cheese paste
version called ‘Big Cheese’ based on his brilliant ‘Milk-pro’ base it seemed
the perfect solution. To be fair, there is little Darren and his team of
consultants don’t know when it comes to specialist baits and his advice is
always very welcome.
As my paste
baits have a habit of being constantly refrozen and thawed I opted to produce
the Hook Bait Company ‘Big Cheese’ base mix without eggs. The initial problem
of not using eggs in the mixing process was to get the base mix to bind in a
way that it could stay on the hook whilst still withstanding a cast.
In place of the
eggs, 20ml of Big Cheese liquid flavour, a bottle of Laguna Blue Cheese SAC
juice and a further 2 parts water would be added to mix the base mix. After a
bit of experimentation, I found that by further adding a grated block of mature
cheddar, a block of Danish blue and a glug of vegetable oil I arrived at the
perfect consistency – better still, you have a cheese paste that absolutely
reeks of cheese!
It has to be
said, the Hook Bait company have got their ‘Big Cheese’ liquid flavour spot
on.... a nice creamy cheese flavour with just the right levels of n-Butyric
acid. Leaving out the eggs makes the paste far more soluble allowing
attractants to dissolve out and draw chub to the bait. It quickly became
apparent there were other more crucial benefits... No longer did my cheese
paste become anywhere near as hard in cold water. In fact whilst remaining
pliable enough to stay on the hook for casting, even in the coldest conditions
it could be struck from the hook cleanly!
Another great
little trick, I discovered that it was possible to ‘crumb’ the paste up by
gently breaking it apart between my finger tips. For the majority of my
Chubbing I use single hook baits; it is good for confidence on occasions to be
able to draw fish to the hook bait using the minimal amount of free offerings.
I want to catch them – not feed them.
Have I arrived
at the perfect Cheese paste that meets my demands? I would have to say yes!
Firm enough to cast, a steady leakage of soluble attractants, ideal in mild
conditions and most importantly, no more nagging doubts about its use in really
cold water. Combining the Blue Cheese SAC juice and the Hook Bait Company ‘Big
Cheese’ base mix, I really feel I have nailed it.
Over the
course of a season, it’s these little attentions to detail that make the
difference; these little refinements really do give you that all important
edge. It’s certainly worth giving careful consideration to bait and
presentation. It gives you confidence to concentrate on what is really
important... Catching fish!
This Cheese paste is perfect for even the coldest of conditions....
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