Pellet Paste made easy!

Summer it seems is on the way and for a lot of commercial anglers that means one of 2 things either starting to use or the increased use of Paste. Paste fishing on its day can be an absolutely devastating method and for some reason has the potential to pick out some of the venues specimens. I generally fish with 2 types of Pellet paste, Skretting Pellet Paste and Halibut Pellet Paste. Of these 2 types the Skrettings Paste is the easier to make (you don't need to use a blender to turn the pellet into a powder), and because of a recent request it will be the one I will be covering in this post.

Making paste is a very simple process all you will need is;

Ingredients

1kg of Micro Skretting Pellets

Liquid additive attractant - Optional*

Equipment Needed

2 x Mixing container

A fork

A kettle

Cling film

Step 1

Pour the entire contents of the packet of pellets into one of the containers (you'll use the other later).

 

Step 2

Pour the boiling kettle water on to pellets. I used roughly 1.6 -1.7 litres of water making this paste which ended up a medium consistency. The pellets absorb the hot water very quickly, but you should use enough water to cover the pellet by a couple of millimetres.

 

As you can see the pellet absorb the water very quickly

Step 2 - Optional*

At this stage add the additional oil or flavour attractant if you want to increase the flavour/smell of the paste, but by this stage you'll have worked out it smells enough as is.

Step 3

Wait until the pellets have absorbed all the water and are cool, they should have also increased in size by about 50%. Do not be tempted to get into the pellets early unless you want a burnt hand. These pellets hold on to the heat of the kettle water for a long time is I found out to my cost.

Step 4

After 20 - 25 minutes use your fork to separate out the swollen pellets allowing them to finish off cooling.

Step 5

Now for the messy part (unless you have a container big enough to hold the saturated pellets without making a mess while mixing) decant half the mixture into the other container, get your hands in there and start squeezing the mixture together. It well be a very sticky mixture initially, but the more you kneed the less granulated the paste will become. This process usually takes 15 minutes and for me involved 15 minutes clean up afterwards...

I realise it looks quite granular here, but the more you kneed the smoother it gets.

 

Step 6

Split the mixture down into more manageable sized lumps which then get wrapped in cling film. In this case I went for 4, 2 for the freezer and 2 for the fridge which will be used on the bank very soon.

 

And there you have it, from Pellets to Paste in 6 easy steps. This is an absolutely lethal bait, one the I hope to use in my next fishing session.  Another great thing about this bait is it is very economical on the pocket coming in at well under £5. One tip on packaging this paste into cling film, as it is quite a sticky mix, if you wet your hands before using it makes handling this bait a lot easier and less messy. As a side note I performed a tank test for this paste and if left stationary it will remain in the moulded shape for 6 minutes before breaking down.

I hope people find this useful and it answers a few questions. I will let you know how successful it is in my next post.