Quest Baits Blog

As the weather is still up and down with temperature going below zero on a regular basis here’s a tip I thought you might find useful.

To stop my line freezing in the rod rings I’ve been rubbing glycerine on them.

A bit about Glycerine;

Glycerine can be brought from any chemist or Tesco’s in the baking department.  In the real world it’s used in many ways… baking, cooking, making soap and of course, bait making.

It’s a neutral, sweet-tasting, colourless, thick liquid which has a high boiling point.  It can be dissolved into water or alcohol, but not oils.  On the other hand, many things will dissolve into glycerine easier than they do into water or alcohol.

Anyhow… that’s the real world… it’s best use is stopping your line freezing up!  Give it a go!

Regards, Scott

It’s so easy to turn up at a lake and go for the easy option of fishing the swim right next to the car park, especially when the weather is not in your favour.

Or if you’re feeling at little more adventurous you’ll head straight for the swim that people are talking about as being a so called hot spot.

As we all know there is more to landing a big carp than this but we sometimes choose to ignore the obvious.

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After carefully going through the procedure of locating the fish, making the rig and selecting the best bait we cast our lines out and wait. Sometimes though it is hard to be confident that the rig is positioned properly and the hook is not snagged.

A good method to initially mask the hook is to fold a piece of PVA foam around it knowing then that it won’t get snagged on its descent to the lake bed and will dissolve a few seconds later. The hook will be held off the bottom of the lake until the foam dissolves and will then gently settle into position. When fishing over a bed of silt PVA foam will ensure that when the lead embeds itself into the bottom the hook will not also be masked.

If you are casting a fair distance the PVA foam may not withstand the cast if attached or folded around the hook. Another way around this is to put a couple of foam pieces into some funnel web and compress them to make a small PVA bag. Then attach this to you hook prior to casting to create a similar effect.

Best wishes, Samantha.

By Scott Ratcliffe;

High-attract self made hook baits are so easy to make, as the colder months slowly approaches, a good bait that smells and has good food souse will differently put some good fish on the bank, here is one of my ways of using your favourite boilies to make them into a high attracter and even change the shape of them  

 Step1

Add about 250 grams of chosen boilies into a food processor  continue reading…

How many of us take tins and rehydrated food out with us while fishing, even if it’s a short session or a week’s session? Here I’m going to show how easy it is to cook fresh on the bank while you’re waiting forthat special take.

You will need
• Fillet of Salmon
• Asparagus
• New Potatoes
• Cherry vine Plum Tomatoes
• Cornish Cockles
• Crème Fraiche
• Lemon
• Courgette
• Salt & Pepper
• Olive oil & Butter
• Butter Beans

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By Samantha Collins-Ratcliffe;

Started off from sunny Cornwall the A30 was clear, foot to the floor as I hit Bristol the heaven’s opened and down came the rain. As the traffic slowed down to 40 miles an hour a there was a slow drive ahead of me towards the M4. The pace picked up, I turned off juntion15 edging towards Lansdale and after a while I turned up at the Carp Society’s Horse Shoe Lake.

I was greeted by David one of the Managers at the lake, we started to chat about what had been coming out that week and he advised me to look at winters bay as some fish were holding up in there.  As I slowly drove around the lake winter bay was looking the best option for me as there was nobody in there, I finally opted for peg 20 this was a double swim with a fair amount of water to go at. I started to set up and once again down came the rain, it must have followed me from the M5? Up went the bivvy and out went two kilo of Smokey fish Boilies all over my swim with the throwing sick. Closely followed by two rods loaded up with PVA bags into the edge of the weeds. Within two hours of waiting off went my first rod, a good 10 minute fight and my first Horse Shoe carp on the bank. continue reading…