Doubled up with luck

On this occasion whilst planning at home, I decided to try things a little differently.

One jar of chillie hemp, a small handful of corn and a scattering of 1mm pellets were placed into a bucket and mixed.

The plan was to bait drop my chosen swim on arrival then leave it for an hour or so while i took a wander down the beat.

A two rod attack was decided upon (which is against the grain for me usually), so ten large droppers were deposited to the chosen spots, one to the left hand tree that runs along the fishable bank rather than out and the right hand rod was placed just upstream, again to a tree but this time the said branches run to the centre of the river causing a crease.

After my stroll I then started to tackle up, both rods were baited initially with three small glued pellets, a pva bag was then attached and the small Stonze weight was gently lowered into place.

After about twenty minutes or so it soon became clear that Ronnie and Reggie (crays) were very active and very hungry!!

Both rods were wound in, and the baits were replaced with two large pellets which in turn were then wrapped with a big ball of Elixer6 paste.
The idea of this was just to give the baits a bit more of a chance of lasting a little longer while Reggie was having his feast, but twofold he would also be picking little bits off to give me a bit more attraction flowing downstream.

It was now dark, the cray taps continued and the odd chub tap had occurred.
11.30pm just as i was pouring one from the flask the right hand rod sprung round and slackened off as just as quick.
Whack!!
A shortish fight took place but soon I was unhooking a nice little fin perfect barbel just shy of seven pounds.

Things then went very quiet, and after texting my brother who was a little further downstream, to say we'll give it till 1am.

Just after 1am when I was thinking of calling it a day, the tip on the left hand spot rattled a little.
Paul then pulled up behind me, and to the words of  'I'll just give it five mins mate' 'something has just shown an interest'.

We were just sat there chatting about the findings of the evening when the left hand rod whacked over and nearly left me as the result of it!

A good fight pursued with the fish trying to stick me in the snags either side of the swim, the tackle held firm and we soon had a barbel in the net that weighed in exactly eight pound on the nose, and to date is the best one I've captured from this new stretch.

Now, was it the hemp mix or the paste? Or both? Was the paste still on there when the fish took even?
Or were they just having it and i got lucky?