Remember to keep up to date with us on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Quest-Baits/194532778767?ref=tn_tnmn
If you like what you see please tick ‘like’ on our facebook page.
Thanks
The Quest Baits Team
Last week I posted a catch report to our website and mentioned that I had caught the fish on an ultra light aerodynamic home made long range pop-up.
This has caused a fair bit of interest with anglers asking me how they can make their own. So here goes…
Everything I used apart from the eggs are available in the Quest Baits range.
First off I separated the white (albumin) from the yolk (yellow bit) of a normal hens egg. By doing this and only using the white of the egg for pop-up production you ensure the finished pop-up is much more buoyant than one made with both the yolk and the albumin. This is important to me as I like to use small baits particularly when distance casting but don’t like to drop my hook sizes to suit. So, by separating the white from the yellow I can ensure they will be as buoyant as possible.
So, with the white of an egg in a glass bowl (I usually only ever do one egg hook bait mixes) I added some of the Magnum White liquid flavour blend. I find it is difficult to go over the top flavour wise with pop-ups as the carp never get to actually taste them so I tend to add the flavour at a higher level than you would for a bottom bait – in most cases when utilising synthetic flavours as part of the attractor system this will also help to stabilise the finished baits (last longer before they go off). continue reading…
Words and pictures courtesy of Pat Gillett:
I was in France a couple of weeks ago and a discussion I had with the lake owner really got me thinking about the way my fishing has changed (in terms of bait usage) over the last few years.
I was first introduced to the Quest range in May 2006 whilst fishing a lake in the Limoges area of France. It proved to be a very tricky week due to various reasons but by using the frozen Special Crab (in very small quantities) I managed to winkle out 9 quality carp (with 7 x 30lb+), these included 2 x 38lb+ commons, 2 mirrors of 47lb+ and a then P.B. mirror of 49lb 14oz, to say I was impressed with the bait was an
38lb 8oz common
understatement.
I had always put my own base mixes together and enjoyed making my own baits, believing they were better than those that I could buy (because I always knew what was going into them), but this became very time consuming and so if I could find a good ready made bait, then I was keen to try it. I carried on using the Frozen Special Crab on my syndicate lake with excellent results and then used it through the winter for my barbel fishing. The results on the various rivers in a number of different conditions were outstanding, this was the bait for me!
The following season the Frozen Special Crab kept on working, but I was then introduced to the Rahja Spice Shelf Life’s. Now I would never use shelf life baits has I believed them to be totally inferior to Fresh frozen baits. Up until this point (2007) most of the shelf life’s I had seen had been little more than ‘rock hard highly flavoured balls of preservatives’, something I would only ever use has a last resort. But with travelling
abroad more regularly (and all the problems that this can entail with frozen baits), we were keen to have a look at the Quest Rahja Spice Shelf Life’s, to see if they were of the same standard as the fresh frozen. I really was pleasantly surprised, these shelf life’s smelt good (without being overpowering), had a great texture (exactly the same has a fresh frozen) and perhaps most importantly contained no artificial preservatives. These baits were obviously going to be a winner and so it proved with a large number of big carp being caught from lots of different venues (including my P.B of 55lb 4oz) and in all weather conditions. A true all season bait.
I have also used the Liver B8, barbel chops and special crab in the shelf life range and taken good fish on all of them. I have been well and truly converted, so much so that I don’t bother with frozen baits for my carp fishing any more.
I still believed however that frozen baits were better for barbel fishing, has I felt they gave off better flavour leakage and thus created a better flavour trail in the current. However after using the Special Crab frozen
One of many double figure barbel I have caught on Rahja Spice shelf life baits.
baits since 2006 I fancied a change, and so in the Autumn of 2011 I decided to use the Rahja Spice Shelf Life’s on the rivers for barbel.
Once again, the results proved to be instant on all the rivers I fished, with many double figure fish gracing my landing net. An added bonus being that I could use them straight out of the bag (I had always boosted
the frozen special crab). I look forward to the new river season to see if the success of this bait goes on.
So in the space of 6 years I have gone from an angler who wouldn’t use anybody else’s bait, to an angler that would only use fresh frozen to one that is supremely confident in using a range of shelf life’s, I really have come full circle!
So much so that I would be happy making the bold statement : ‘if I could only use one bait for my carp and barbel fishing – it would be the Rahja Spice Shelf Life range’. Sounds like an advert for Quest, but it really isn’t it is a statement I firmly believe in.
How things have changed in 6 years !
Cheers,
Pat Gillett
Friday March 2nd – Upper Trent After the disappointment of losing a big fish a couple of weeks ago, it was back to the Upper Trent for another go. The little bit of extra water had run off and the level was now no more than summer normal, water temperature was excellent though at 9.8 Deg. C. I set up in the same swim has I had hooked the big fish from previously and fished the exact same spots. Both rods carried the Rahja Spice hook baits in various guises and this time they both carried feeders filled with the mini pellet mix and crushed up Rahja and Ghurkka Spice boilies. Started fished at about 4.40pm and didn’t really expect anything till dark, this was proven correct when at about 6.30pm the upstream
11lb 2oz
rod signalled a short ‘jabby’ sort of bite that upon striking was met by a very solid resistance. As is the norm for the Upper Trent barbel, it fought like its life depended on it (really think these are the hardest fighting fish I have ever caught). This one turned out to be quite a chunky fish of 11lb 2oz and fell to a trimmed down 10mm Rahja hookbait
covered in a very thin paste wrap. The same rod was away again at about 7.20pm with what was obviously another good fish, the same hard fight ensued with this one making a couple of long unstoppable runs.
Same rod was away after a re-cast 11lb!
Once in the net I could see that the fish was longer than the first one, but hadn’t really got much depth to it, it was still a good fish though and weighed in at 11lb exactly. A nice brace in two casts!
That proved to be the short feeding spell for the evening and no more bites were forthcoming before I packed up at 9.40pm when the air temperature was about 7 Deg. C.
It packed a big bite!
Whilst packing my landing net away I noticed there was something stuck in it. On closer inspection with the head torch I could see that it was a tiny little dormouse, that was getting its legs more and more entangled in the mesh the more it panicked. I spent a while gently untangling it and had just about got it free when the little bugger showed it’s gratitude by biting my finger (so much for my good deed for the day). You wouldn’t think it looking at these tiny little animals but they pack a fair bite!
Saturday March 3nd – Upper Trent Went back to the same spot to see if that big un’ may still be about. I fished from 4.45pm till 10pm on a crystal clear night where the moon was that bright it was almost like fishing in daylight (never great conditions). Had two bites, one ‘bream’ like bite on the upstream rod which turned out to a barbel of 9lb 10oz which unusually for the Upper Trent also fought like a Bream! The other bite was a slow pull round on the downstream which resulted in the first ‘bite-off’ I have had in years. That was the only movement on what was a very quiet evening, but at least the Rahja had again saved a blank!
Wednesday March 14th – Upper Trent I had the afternoon off to have the last evening on the river before the season finished at midnight. Conditions were not great with low clear water, bright sunshine and high pressure, but I was
hoping for some action after dark as the water temperature was still showing a very positive 9.4 Deg. C. Just has it was going dark it went really foggy, this turned out to be a freezing fog and by 7.45pm the rods and everything else were white. Carried on till 9.30pm but with only a couple of sharp chubby type raps I decided to call it a day. The air temperature was now 0 Deg. C and I guess it had been for a while. So a disappointing end to the river season (I’ve never really done much good on the last day), but looking back it has been quite a productive season for the relatively small amount of time I have spent on the banks. Also thanks to Shaun I have added another excellent barbel bait to my armoury, that is the very successful Rahja Spice, which has proved to be an excellent barbel catcher on several different rivers and in many different conditions. Roll on the next three months before the new season starts.
Saturday March 24th to Friday March 30th – Le Monument Lake – France. For the first time in nearly 2 years I had a week off work, really needing a break, and a trip to France would be just what was needed to ‘chill out’ and recharge the batteries. To get the most out of a French trip it is always important that the venue you pick meets the criteria that you are looking for. This was to be a trip with 2 work colleagues and the venue needed to meet the following : 1. We wanted exclusive use of the lake for the week.We wanted a food package provide 2. We didn’t want to have to drive too far when we reached France. 3. The lake needed to be in a nice quiet location. 4. The size of the fish was relatively unimportant as long as the above 4 points were met. After trolling through various websites we finally came upon a lake which I thought looked perfect, the lake was Le Monument on the Angling Lines website. It is a 5 acre lake in the middle of the Brittany countryside, that did a full food package
One of the unusual stone features in the lake
and was only 165 miles from the port of Caen, with the added bonus that the little feedback that was present suggested a decent average size fish of 25lb +. Choice of bait wasn’t really a problem has I have always found the Rahja Spice to be pretty instant in all the lakes I have fished in France. So I took a mixture of 10mm, 15mm and 20mm shelf lifes with a couple of Kg of the Magnum White to try if needed. Arriving at the venue at about 11.30am we were met by Mark Walsh (the owner) under cloudless skies with an air temperature already of 23 Deg. C. Mark gave us a quick tour around the lake and left us to it. I then spent the next couple of hours walking around the lake with a marker rod to see what I could find. The lake was more or less split in half by a large central island. It proved to be relatively shallow with depths ranging mainly from 2 to 5 feet with the odd deeper area.
Looking along the Island
The first night I just fed about 20 boilies over my 3 rods (all in different spots), not wanting to put much bait in until I had more idea of where the fish were feeding. Apart from a couple of bream, nothing else happened, but I saw a couple of fish roll in the area between 2 of my rods so I was happy enough where I was. After seeing these fish, I introduced some more boilies, plus hemp and lake pellet. With the really high pressure and high temperature I would keep 2 rods tight to the island (in 3 feet of water) and try my third one in more open water and at 6 ½ feet deep.
My first fish came at about 7.30pm on the Sunday (a mirror of 24lb +), and was followed by 2 more the same night, all the fish coming to one rod tight to the island. The same thing happened the following night and so a feeding pattern was beginning to emerge. With this in mind I decided to reel all my rods in at 12pm, introduce a bit more bait and then not recast the rods again until 5pm. This ‘rested’ the swim for a good while
My largest fish of the week 33lb 3oz
but also meant that I would be making no disturbance before the start of the first feeding spell.
This worked well through the week, and by feeding the 2 island rods consistently I got them both producing well, whilst the open water rod only produced 1 fish all week. The whole week was ‘wall to wall sunshine’ (with temperatures of over 30 Deg. C) and amazingly for the time of year, I never saw a cloud all week.
I ended up with 20 x 20lb + carp (with 6 x 30lb +) and a catfish of 26lb. All the fish being caught on the Rahja Spice shelf lifes (first time they had been used at the venue), and all between 8pm and 8am.
30lb plus beast of a fish with plenty of growing potential.
The 2 guys I went with were really new to French carping and so found the fishing a lot harder and ended the week with 4 & 5 fish respectively. Coming back on the ferry, this seemed to be the norm for the week, with a lot of anglers struggling for 2 or 3 fish for the week at a wide variety of venues.
The week was just what I needed, we were very lucky with the weather, the lake was set in lovely surroundings where all you could hear for the most part was the sound of birdsong and the food package was superb.
I came back totally ‘chilled out’, and hopefully I will get back there in the future.
“Kill nothing but time, take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints!”
I saw the above quotation under a picture of some guys beach fishing in Africa, apparently they are lyrics from a song. Perfectly sums up our fishing to me.
Cheers, Pat Gillett
Spring, one of my favourite times of the year for catching carp. With the high air pressure I knew that the shallow lake about 10 minutes from my house could be worth heading down and putting a bit of bait in, I felt the carp might respond to the warmer weather and my god they did!
Thursday evening I pre baited the swim with some Magnum White and Squid Berry boilies and by 5 o clock Friday after school I was down the lake and ready for the challenge.Ghurkka Spice was my top choice of bait
and will be from now on until the winter arrives again (although it is fair to say it has produced a lot of winter fish for Shaun). With the days slowly getting longer I could manage to arrive after continue reading…
Recent Barbel Diary
I keep hearing people saying how mild a winter we are having, can’t really agree as since the start of the new year there haven’t been many occasions when I have thought the conditions were good for a bit of barbel fishing. I have detailed the few trips I have had below:
Tuesday January 10th – Upper Trent
I finished work early to try and cash in on the small window of opportunity that the current very mild temperatures have presented us with. The only thing I was conscious of was that with the river level dropping 0.6m in less than 24 hours, we may have missed the best feeding spell and the best chance of a big fish. But I was still keen to get out, has at the moment my fishing time is quite scarce and the forecast was for cold weather returning again in a few days time.
I was fishing at around 4.15pm and decided to use the Rahja Spice shelf lifes to see how they fared in the winter (did well on them in the Autumn). I set up with a feeder carrying 5oz of lead which was loaded with the mini pellet mix. Hook bait was 1 and half 10mm boilies totally ‘peeled’ and then wrapped in a thin layer of matching paste.
The river had a good flow has expected, but because of the recent ‘flush’ through there was very little debris being washed downstream, making the fishing relatively easy (a refreshing change on the Upper Trent).
All was very quiet with no fish rolling or topping (quiet surprising given the very mild air temperature), until about 7.45pm when the upstream rod signalled a very strong take. This proved to be a very lean barbel of 6 or 7lbs which at least saved a blank. At exactly the same time my mate had a barbel of similar size. These proved to be the only bites until we packed up at 10pm. So a very short feeding spell indeed!
My concerns of being a day too late were confirmed by a mate of ours who took a cracking barbel of 14lb 11oz from the Upper Trent on the Sunday evening when the river was at its peak level. continue reading…
