Chub, barbel, carp and things you forget about – as well as my money saving blog of the day.

The reason for me using it in the first place was whilst fishing for barbel on the River Dove whilst trundling baits along the bottom. Now I caught plenty of fish doing this but it always concerned me the unnatural rattle across the gravel bottom of the river created by the zinc alloy bombs we had been forced to use after the lead bans below 1oz. Lead was softer on the gravel and I was sure that zinc created a much louder noise. This hit home to me whilst experimenting with rubber weights, my bite rate multiplied significantly. Now this could have been down to them being more buoyant than the zinc bombs but I had it in my head that the noise reduction was a big thing.

The only problem was that I was really limited to the sizes available and I didn’t really like the excess splash they made due to their size at the start of the cast/trundle. I thought long and hard about this and came up with what I was sure would work. A legal zinc alloy bomb but with a Platicine wrap around it to deaden the rattle.

First experiments were brilliant and I couldn’t then see me using a straight zinc bomb on gravel again. Plus the Plasticine or Newplast as the modern equivalent is called these days is available in much more discreet colours than the zinc bombs ever were, plus you can change the shape of your bomb (extra camouflage) or make it larger or smaller in an instant without having to carry lots of bombs with you. Another major bonus also is that a Plasticine/Newplast covering means you lose less leads in snags as often a bit of the plasticine will pull away and release the lead.

Since then I have used Plasticine as back leads, nipped on the line as well as running. I have used it as ultra safe pull off bombs (always pulls free in a snag) and also for disguising the shape of things when fishing very close (altering the lead shape, making tubing look less like straight etc, etc).

I have just broken a chunk off and added it back to my carp gear. All those flying back lead plastic inserts I seem to have cluttering the rig pouch after losing the weights can again be brought back into use and safer than the originals as the plasticine/Newplast will pull off quite easily when required.

It’s amazing some of the edges we had many years ago that get forgotten about. I have  just Googled Newplast and ordered another 500 g block for £3.90 post free. Now that does save some money on back leads and many other things.

Best fishes
Shaun

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