Winter chub fishing

[keora]

I'll be fishing for chub in the winter months. Normally I use bread as bait, but I thought this year I've have another go with cheese paste. In the past I've never been able to get the right formula. I've tried cheddar cheese mixed well with damp sliced bread. It's a mix where it's difficult to get the right texture - the paste on the hook gets much harder after a few minutes in the water during winter.

Can anyone give me a good recipe please?

 

[Peter Jacobs]

This recipe was from an old member on here, cg74 . . . . I've tried it a few times and been successful, but I add a few drops of cheese flavouring . . .

"
The best cheese paste mix I've found goes:

250 grams frozen shortcrust pastry.
250 grams of blue cheese (my preferred choice being stilton)
100 grams extra mature cheddar

Freeze ALL the ingredients and grate into a bowl, then either mix quickly by hand or I blitz with a food processor until mixed evenly.
Leave to stand and thaw for a day somewhere warm, during which time excess moisture should evaporate off.
Then knead until an even paste, if still to sticky add corn flour slowly whilst still kneading.

If using in very cold water try mixing in 50-100 grams of soft cheese such as Brie. (if adding Brie I always leave unrefrigerated for about a week to ripen)

Just freeze unused bait in a plastic bag and when making a new mix up try and add a little of the old mix in to aid 'ripening'.

Regards additional flavourings, I'd do so very cautiously, otherwise you'll get an overpowering turnoff.
Though replacing the cornflour with instant custard powder or a little chilli both work well."

I tried to find the Dave slater cheese paste recipe but couldn't find it.

 

[The Sogster]

Try using ready made puff pastry to mix with the cheese I usually find about 50/ 50 is best.
As for it hardening, make the paste sloppier so it just stays on the hook and just dip in the margins before casting to harden it.

 

[Bluenose]

The 1kg blocks of frozen pastry are fine, take half of this and add some cheese (I've never been particularly picky, just whatever is leftover and/or cheap/going out of date or whatever makes you confident) add some salt also, and a few drops of flavour. I put 1 or 2 mls in a sandwich bag and roll the bait round and knead, before feeezing. Blue Cheese flavour works, as does banana, as does scopex, as does strawberry, as does..... etc etc

When it starts to get used up, just add a bit more pastry and flavour etc. I reckon the chub aren't really bothered.

 

[rayner]

I don't bother now with cheese paste, nowhere for me to use it.
When I did it was usually cheese mixed bread then I progressed to cheese with sausage meat, the second mix was always better for me on the Swale.

 

[keora]

Great, thanks for all your advice. Frozen pastry is common in most of the recipes. And the mix of sausage meat and cheese sounds interesting.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

For added "zing" try adding a few drops of Laguna blue cheese flavouring . . . .

 

[tigger]

Strange how many anglers frown upon others using pellets during the colder months, claiming they are to fatty and can't be digested by fish.
Yet cheese, dairy fat and animal fats are considered to be fine.
I reckon a fishmeal based pellet would be much easier for a fish to digest during the winter months than dairy and animal fats.

 

[chevin4]

Rather than use pastry I use a base mix. Until it became unavailable my choice was Richworths 50/50gold. I have substituted this with John Bakers flood and frost but it's to early to predict how effective this will be.

 

[Bluenose]

Rather than use pastry I use a base mix. Until it became unavailable my choice was Richworths 50/50gold. I have substituted this with John Bakers flood and frost but it's to early to predict how effective this will be.

Base mixes are relatively expensive baits compared to standard cheesepaste (not a criticism by the way) I've no doubt they will work well. There were a few fellas here who used to fish the Lea, they had some clonking chub on high protein pastes iirc.

Another thing is that bog standard cheesepaste is bomb proof. It can go in and out of the freezer, be left out the freezer for ages and still catch when it gets discovered at the bottom of the bag ages later..

 

[chevin4]

Yes I was one of the fellas who fished the Lea and had good chub on the mix. Sadly it's a shadow of its former self certainly for chub but barbel fishing is still good

 

[Bluenose]

Yes I was one of the fellas who fished the Lea and had good chub on the mix. Sadly it's a shadow of its former self certainly for chub but barbel fishing is still good

There was an excellent thread going back some years 'HNV baits for chub' or similar, may have been the title..

 

[no-one in particular]

I have always just used plastic supermarket cheddar, pull a hook through with a baiting needle, a inch square is often heavy enough to cast free lined style. I don't know whether this is any better than the pastes described as I never tried them but I catch chub. Cheese with chili I found in some supermarket or other once and that seemed to work very well. If the cheese goes hard in cold water I found give the fish time to swallow the cheese and break it down which I think they do with their pharyngula teeth at the back of their mouths; I hooked more fish if I did this. I used dairy lea a few times in cold water, a blob on the hook was a bit difficult being soft but went harder in cold water and stayed on well enough just about, I caught chub on it a few times.

 

[John Aston]

Danish blue , add golden breadcrumbs , a little flour , some turmeric, and Nan Pla fish sauce . Knead well, put in tub. Good to go. Been catching chub on it since the pre Jurassic era - I fish it usually on a size 4 , on bend of which is hooked a pad of crust, and the bait is built up on that . It has also caught the odd barbel, brown and rainbow trout and pike . And a single grayling and salmon . Killer bait . ,

 

[The Sogster]

For me it's a toss up between bread and cheese, I hedge my bets and use breadflake/ paste with nbutriyc acid.

In non covid times also guarantees a place alone near the pub fire, one drop on each knee and let the aroma free.

 

[seth49]

One mix I used on the ribble for chub was a mixture of liquidised bread and tasty lancashire cheese, about half and half, and if it was to stiff a mix I added groundnut oil as well to soften it.

After a days trotting and it was going dark I’d swap to this on a light ledger and tip rod, used to catch plenty of chub up to four pounds plus, even when the landing net was freezing to the bank I’d be still catching.

 

[108831]

Breadflake with a small piece of blue cheese or cheesepaste on the shank above the flake can be an absolute killer...

 

[keora]

Thank you for the advice.

 

[Molehill]

I do like a fingernail sized piece of crust, but I think of it as a visual bait best when water is clear and dusk when the chub come out from undercover to hunt. Good in slacks where it pops up off the bottom nicely.
Coloured water or when trying to draw fish out it is back to cheese, worms, meat.

 

[xenon]

as some have already said, ready made pastry and any blue cheese (danish blue, gorgonzola, stilton) mixed 50/50 gives something soft enough to pull through on the strike (although I cannot actually remember the last time i struck-bites are usually savage affairs and you just need to lift into a fish on) but resilient enough to stay on the hook.