I always liked to use the special crab frozen boiles and paste. One of the little things i used to do with the paste for the ‘proper winter fishing’ (say water temp below 6 deg C) was to boost it up with the matching flavour. I would remove the paste from the tub and mould it into 4 equal size balls. I would then put 5ml of flavour into each of 2 freezer bags and then add to balls of paste to each bag. Work the bags until all the flavour has been ingested by the paste and then freeze overnight.

I would remove the bag from the freezer about 3 hours before fishing (so the bait at times was still slightly thawing on the bank), this seems to release a lot of attraction very quickly.

With the advent of the barbel chops with the added attractors i think you have in part replicated this.

I also used to fill an empty camera film canister with 5ml of flavour to 50ml of water and carry this in my bag. Then if i had taken to much paste and it started to dry out i would massage this into the dry paste to make it workable again.

I can remember winter carp fishing with my dad (as a kid in the 70’s) and seeing how the paste baits (pre-boilie days) could be so effective. This is something i have never forgot and is another reason why i have so much confidence in paste baits.

Cheers,
Pat

I have found that using the matching Boilie GLUG (not dip) and Kneading it into the paste returns it to a softer state and boosts it at the same time (latex gloves are handy to prevent your hands smelling strongly and also to prevent any human scent contaminating the bait).
As with pop up tubs I keep it out of the sun and store it in a cool environment at home too.
Paste is massively underestimated in my opinion and I have had terrific results on it both in match fishing and in my general carp fishing.

Cheers

Jamie