Paste Fishing, No2

Rigs

Float choice really is a personal preference thing and believe me you will go through various makes and sizes before you eventually find one that will be suitable to you,and how you fish, what depth you are fishing etc, All these factors are of personal preference and my choice may not work for you,Its the same with hook choice i only ever use one type of hook for all my fishing because i have confidence in it, You may have a different preference but that's OK if you're confident with your choice stick to it, I think sometimes as anglers we are swayed by peer pressure or magazine articles etc. just because something works for an England international doesn't mean it will work for you.You'll notice in magazines there is never an article written about an item giving it a bad review,Remember these tackle manufacturers pay their sponsored anglers to give rave reviews and these sponsored anglers aren't paying out of their own pockets for these items. Also the magazine gets paid for publishing kit reviews. advertising etc, So don't take what is written as gospel.

Rigs,Floats,Shotting etc
My Rigs are pretty simple, The floats I'm currently using for 4ft of water and under are Maver invincible series 6 floats in the 4x14 weight range, this float has a standard size tip(Note this is not a paste float).this has a hole through the body for the line to pass through and i use three small lenghts of silicone tubing on the stem, I have these in various colours to suit the light conditions.
The floats i am currently using for deeper water are Preston Tyson 4's 0.8 grams up to 1gram these have an eye above the body and again 3  lengths of silicone tubing on the stem, but noticeably have a longer bristle.
The line i use used to be Silstar Matchteam which has now been re branded as W B Clarke matchteam, I have been using this line for probably 20 years and am fully confident in it and see no reason to change, For my paste fishing i will use breaking strains from 3.3lb up to 6.6lb and all of these i will fish straight through.
The hooks i use after trying many,many different shape's size and manufacturers are the Preston PR 28's or 29's.
Now the shotting is as follows for the smaller float i use 2 no 8's about 14 inches from the hook with a number 10 dropper below that, This may change throughout the match depending on conditions and how the fish are feeding, I find some matches i have to constantly change my shotting patterns to keep the fish coming, whether this be stringing the out ,moving the dropper up to bulk even sometimes putting all the shot under the float so there is nothing down the line. But experiment as the match progresses and i feel this has brought me fish when they shy off etc.But always remember that you're paste needs to register on the float tip, sometimes in the summer i will have no float showing above the surface, as long as i can see the tip under the water  so i can see bites that's fine, this again is something that has brought me the odd fish when the bites dry up, the only thing i can think of is that it offers less resistance to the fish.
The deeper float rig is shot exactly the same as the shallow rig but the difference being the bulk is 4 no 4's 14 inches from the hook with 2 no 8 droppers below, obviously you don't have the scope to move the shot around as much but still play with the shotting because like I've said before what might work for me may not work for you.but play around with it as what works one day might not the next you will throughout a session find a pattern that improves bites and hooking etc.
My hook size depends on what size of bait I'm thinking of using and what size fish I'm looking to catch but as a general rule most of my paste fishing is done using a size 14 hook.
My elastics for those of you that know me are heavy usually size 16-18 hollow but again preference is you re's.As most of my paste fishing is done no more than 4 metres from the bank and for big weights i need to get that fishing under control and in the net as quickly as possible so i fish heavy for that reason.I'm not going to slate puller bung etc as I've never used them so can't comment i just use what I'm confident in.