Quest Baits Blog

The Chod Rig has to be one of my most my favoured rigs. I’ve opted to use it for the majority of my sessions lately, and with some personal touches I think it’s as perfect as I can get it.

Instead of using lead core I use a 48-inch Tungsten Ex-Heavy Leader from TFG and instead of using beads, due to a lack of them in my tackle box, I’ve replaced them with two 6mm boilies that have been air dried for a week. After looking into it I am confident they will stay hard in the water for up to 24 hours.

Before I cast out I like to put two foam nuggets on the hook to prevent any debris getting attached to it as it finds the bottom of the lake and attach a small PVA bag of my Quest favourite boilies.

Then I can wait for the action, but hopefully I’ll not be waiting too long!

It works for me so go out and give it a go.

Samantha Collins-Ratcliffe

By Ron Key

Only been here a couple of hours

In the last year rather than stick to one main syndicate water I have fished lots of waters both in the UK and France.  Most of these waters were completely new to me, many I had not even seen before I started fishing.

Of course I could write about how I used watercraft, searching for gravel spots, weed beds, bars, drop offs, gulleys, bottlenecks and all the usual elements that go into choosing our swim and the places we fish in them.

I’m going to take that as read though and concentrate on feeding.

When I approach a new water; unless I know for certain the fish are feeding heavily, and fish are getting caught, it’s unlikely that I will start by creating large beds of particles or boilies from the start.

continue reading…

With these dark nights and awful weather I thought it was time to have a smile. Any clean(ish) funny stories or happenings would be welcome. Below is my first contribution.

As some of you may be aware I am a mathematics teacher. Years ago I was fishing a water that had both a syndicate and day ticket anglers. As it happened one of the pupils I taught and I were syndicate members.

Now this lad was a really good kid, but not overly academic. Just to paint the picture he came round one morning really excited that he had caught a green carp. Wow I thought, is this a carp from Mars? Or a new species? Or had he been on something? On going round to photograph it.. you guessed it… it was a tench!

Now one night the lads thought they would play a joke on him and placed a blow up against the back of his bivvy. Next morning, when the day ticket anglers arrived the comments were wonderful: continue reading…

One of the interesting things about barbel fishing through the Autumn and winter is the amount of different baits that can be used to catch them, and how on some days they will favour one particular bait and ignore anything else.

With this in mind it pays to take a small variety of baits with you so that you can in fact change or experiment to find the bait the barbel want whilst you are there. Just because you have a good catch on say pellet one day, don’t become stereotyped into thinking that this method will always catch you fish as the barbel can be contrary creatures at times.

In fact I can think of many occasions over the last few winters where a change of bait has brought instant results. Also when fishing two rods less than 10 yards apart on different baits, i have had as many as six good fish on one bait whilst the other rod has remained motionless. continue reading…

A lot of the French waters hold sturgeon; I have caught several from different waters up to 64 lb.

The biggest I have come across where at the Angling Lines venue, Laroussi. I have fished Laroussi for 3 times, and caught sturgeon on 2 trips.

On my 1st trip I caught one that came out 3 times between the anglers that week. My 2nd visit I was able to hook 3…and landed 2 of them. Both weighing over 60 lb.

The strange thing is that my friend that was fishing with me on both trips only landed one.

In my view these fish love fishmeal based boilies and pellets. He was using scopex on his 1st trip, where I was on fishmeal based baits.

Often I could see them feeding over my baits, they tails would come out of the water. Revealing that they where present. After he switched on to fishmeal he landed one within 1 hour after casting his rigs out.

Another important thing with sturgeon is the way to handle them. They need to be landed by hand…not in a landing net. If you would try to land them in a landing net then the sturgeon could get damaged petty badly. Their back could break, and the fish would not survive a capture.

The best way to land them is when are ready for landing, put the unhooking mat in the water and try to get hold of them by the tale pull the sturgeon on to the mat and take it carefully on to the bank.

After weighing, and taking the trophy shots carefully put it back in the lake and hold it by the tale to recover, they often need some time before swimming away, so be patient and take your time to treat them properly.

I think they are fairly easy to catch, but I think its all up to the baits that are used. Anybody that’s targeting them I would recommend Smokey fish, special crab or the liver b8.  In combination with pellets I am sure you will get some sturgeon action.

To avoid them, or at least reducing the chances of a sturgeon take I would recommend fruity trifle or rahja spice. I never tried the pineapple crush, but maybe some of the other bloggers can give advice on these baits being “sturgeon proof “. I know they are really good for avoiding poison chats.

So if your after some of these prehistoric monsters… give Laroussi a try, and maybe you will catch the sturgeon of a life time.

Greetz, roy van goor

By Roy van Goor;

I just got home from a session abroad with some friends. When the trip was getting towards the end something happened to one of the other anglers that shocked me.

On his final morning a rat got in to his bivvy and was sitting on his face. When he woke up, and tried to scare the rat away it bit him in his ear leaving him devastated.

It was the first time I ever heard about something like this happening to an angler. But I am sure there are plenty more stories that are similar to this one.

I never encountered a thing as horrible as that, but do had some occurrences with wildlife in my fishing career birds cleaning my tackle cows watching me playing a fish. continue reading…