Quest Baits Blog

By Roy Von Goor

About 10 years ago I started fishing a local lake, a park lake about 8 acre’s in size.  At that time the stock level was massive, lots of doubles and twenties with the odd thirty plus fish.

The biggest resident at that time weighted 34 lb – a big mirror carp. Everybody wanted to catch that monster!

Fishing was fairly easy, days of 5 fish or more were standard. The fish loved the anglers bait and kept coming back for it.  At that time I did not land the monster, but sadly lost it in front of the net twice.

Last year I had caught my target fish from another lake fairly fast. With no direct other option I decided to take a ticket for the lake I fished 10 years ago.  After arriving I noticed alot of anglers, but nobody catching anything.  All the anglers complained, they did not feed, weather was wrong, etc, etc continue reading…

A question to Shaun;

I am doing some winter fishing this year and wonder what bait you would recommend and what size. I like the look of the Fruity Trifle.
Tom

Hi Tom,

Fruity Trifle is one of my favourite winter baits. The base mix I started using right back in the 80’s and have caught literally hundreds of carp on it. It is very easily digestible so the carp will feed again quite quickly – very important in the winter as many baits stay inside them for too long.

Size wise I always try and mix the sizes in my own fishing and if the distance being fished allows I always crumble baits up for loose feed as well as offering whole ones.

Ideally I would introduce a small amount of 10mm’s, 15mm’s and 20mm’s whole and broken… but if I were limiting myself to just one size of bait I would take the larger 20mm’s simply because there is plenty of scope for breaking them into smaller pieces and trimming them down etc.

Hope this helps
Best fishes, Shaun Harrison

By Shaun Harrison

So, how do we arrive at the final recipe the finished bait and what sort of testing do we actually do?

This is such a frequently asked question that I thought I should perhaps answer everyone.

Many of the baits in the Quest Baits range have a very long history to them – certainly a lot longer than Quest has been around.

Baits like ‘Fruity Trifle’ have been part of my personal armoury since the late 80’s with just the odd tweak here and there as new ingredients have come to light which I feel are better than some of the ones I used in the original base mix form.

But there are also the boilies such as Liver B8 which I have worked on since the formation of Quest Baits.

The Liver B8 was a bait I always wanted to do – total meat based with no fish. It was a case of finding the right ingredients. The actual bait had been in my head for years but it took a long while to track down the ingredients I wanted.

Everyone knows the effectiveness of liver products in baits. Carp love the taste of liver but how many of you are aware of the type of liver you are using? Does your bait have pigs liver in it, cows liver perhaps, chicken liver, lambs liver – the list goes on.

continue reading…

By Jamie Simpson

How often should you change your line and what causes the deterioration in it’s stated breaking strain?

I changed my main line prior to my recent trip to France and have already stripped it back off to be replaced.

Replaced after just one week may seem excessive to some people but if you think about it thats 7 days solid angling, fishing near overhanging trees with some underwater debris. Not to mention a few Carp played on it and in hot sunny conditions.

I use Berkeley Big Game for most of my general fishing and at around £10 for 1700 odd meters, it’s not exactly expensive. A useful tip is to have backing line on your spool and only replace around 250 meters. The reason for 250 meters is that it is well past my maximum casting distance and if I have to strip back a few yards near the hooklink then I have a bit to play with. This also applies to if I have a crack off for some reason. continue reading…

By Elie Godsi

I hate spod spill! – all those bits of spod mix flying out of the top of the spod when you cast it out, leaving a trail of bait short of the marker float and right where your lines will be when you cast your rigs out. Watch the Korda Underwater videos and one thing comes across loud and clear – if carp feed over line (or leadcore / tubing) and pick this up with their lips when they feed they spook straight away, putting other fish on guard and drastically reducing your chance of a take. continue reading…

By Samantha Collins-Ratcliffe;

How many anglers do you see on the bank with an unhooking mat the size of a postage stamp?

Carp care is the most important thing you should practise when carp fishing, after all, if the fish suffer, then so do our carpers.

It is very important that we care for our captures regardless of how big it is, because a 4lb carp will one day be a 40lb carp if they are looked after on the bank and returned safely to the water then will say in prestige condition for all to enjoy.

A high care unhooking mat is ideal whatever the situation as it is large and well padded, you can get an upper 40lb carp in it with minimum worry or problems. continue reading…