Super picky eater

I'm having a problem again with getting my 06 male pastel to eat. It started off that he would only take live rat crawlers, and just ignored any mice that were offered, then took nothing for about 3-4 weeks, then took rat agin for about 2 weeks, off again. I tried feeding f/t rat just to see, and he took, even though he had ignored anything other than live or stunned everytime it was offered. He did this for 4 feedings. When I went to feed him this time, he struck and coiled, and then like played with it for awhile, but wouldn't eat. It is really getting frustrating .I have tried everything I can think of or have seen posted here, from not handling him before feeding, being completely anal about temp/humidity, feeding in cage, feeding out of cage, feeding at a different time of day, etc. The only thing I could think of is that I did not have it thouroughly heated. Has anyone else had this issue? I know he's way too young to be going off feed, and don't want this to seriously affect him in any way. The only good thing is that he's not losing weight (currently weighing in at 342 grams). Please help

That sucks. I have a similar problem with one of my snakes. He eats almost at random. One thing that sometimes helps is dipping the rat or mouse in warm water before feeding. This helps two things; one it makes it warm, and two it makes it wet. When it's wet, balls will start licking it for the moisture and once they lick it for a bit they usually eat it.
good luck! I'll be reading the rest of the replies for ideas for my guy as well. Also, if water doesnt work, you can try chicken broth.

I have tried the water thing because I read in a thread that someone else did that, but even that didn't work. I checked with a few people in my herp society and have thought about trying gerbils and see if he'll take those on a more regular basis, but I don't want to keep that up forever.

Gerbils are the LAST thing you want to try, they could get hooked.

Just a though since I don't own a snake yet...
Seems like he likes rats, could it be that this latest one was too big for him to eat, so he just "played" with it?
Following these posts with interest since I'm getting a BP this summer (pastel hopefully).

Well, he finally ate. Now I hope he just keeps it up, he seems to be going in streaks where he'll eat for 2 or 3 weeks, then stops. So we'll keep our fingers crossed and see what happens nest time.