English based company Quest Baits Ltd supply bait in many different countries but up until now have not really pushed to get a foot into the Dutch market but this is now about to change.

I was talking to Quest Baits owner Shaun Harrison about this and he explained that Quest Baits had been very fortunate in its growth and have always been able to sell everything they make so haven’t had to go out to find new markets.

He explained he had websites in different countries but now felt it only right to start exploring some of the other countries close to the U.K. Quest Baits now have a much larger production and storage capacity than ever before.

So, having struck a deal to allow F.N.E. Trading in Amsterdam to distribute the range through the Netherlands he was delighted to hear that they would be showing a good selection of the Quest Baits range at the mighty Carp Zwolle fishing show.

With visitors from all over Europe this is the place to be, if you want to promote your bait.

Being a Quest Baits consultant Frans Nestor from F.N.E. Trading invited to come along and help out at the show. I travelled through a very icy Holland to get to Zwolle and be at the Carp Fishing Show on the 4^th & 5^th of February.

My job? Share my experiences on Quest Baits with the many visitors.

Together with a couple of other enthusiastic people we worked hard throughout this weekend in an effort to make the visitors more familiar with the boilies, pellets, pop-ups glugs & dips of the Quest Baits range. A range of baits which is distinguished by the use of pure ingredients, as you yourself would in the kitchen.

The reactions of visitors to the stand were very positive and resulted almost every time in interesting conversations on people’s individual view on carp angling.

The highlight of the weekend was the introduction of Quest Baits newest addition to the range, the Magnum White. Tested in England with very good results by Shaun Harrison and a few selected friends.

Looking back on this weekend, I think it is safe to say that Quest Baits made a great debut at the show and we’ve made good progression on promoting it!

Best wishes

Patricia

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Hi,

We are off to Lords lake in May, and was hoping for some advice on what bait to use and the size you think best, ?

Also I am looking to re-line my reels, have you any recommendations on the best line to use, all help greatfully recieved.

many thanks,

Bev

i caught this one on Ghurkka Spice in Slovenia. I'd use it anywhere in the world.

Hi Bev,

It’s a refreshing change to receive a question from a female angler.

I’m afraid I haven’t fished Lords Lake but if I were visiting it in May I would take a couple of baits with me so that I could ring the changes. Almost certainly in May I would have a  fish based bait with me. Something like Special Crab or the new Squid Berry which will be released in March.

As an alternative bait the two most instant ones on waters where they are used for the first time seem to be Rahja Spice and Ghurkka Spice. Both are very different to each other. The Rahja utilises human grade spices and smells like an Indian Curry whilst the Ghurkka Spice is more coca nutty with a more gentle spice blend. I would be happy to use either of these spice baits anywhere in the world at any time of the year. Here is a link telling you a little more about the boilies. http://www.questbaits.com/results.php?category=1

I did a Google search for Lords Lake and see that Angling Lines have it on their books. I’m guessing you have seen this on their site http://www.anglinglines.com/Lords/

Here is a video link of how I tackle new (to me) waters in France which is still very relevant to my fishing now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsdWCc-fRSU&feature=player_embedded

Regarding line I have bench tested literally 100′s of different lines over the years as I had 25 years working in a busy fishing tackle shop so was sent lots of different things for assessment. Rarely did manufacturers claims match up to the tests I did with the lines. All the lines would be tested fairly the same way. I had to test lines that I certainly had no intention of using but still needed an unbiased opinion when asked about them.

The one carp fishing line that has stood head and shoulders above all others that I have tested has been the P-Line Extrusion (also called Evolution in some countries). I have used this myself for several years now. It lasts on the spool for a very long while, casts nice and has incredible abrasion resistance and superb  ’actual diameter’/'actual breaking strain’ ratio.

After deciding a few years back that this was the best line I could find I have continued to use it and mention to people about it. Line is a personal thing though and most will tell you such and such is better. Interesting though and refreshing assurance for my personal line testing methods is that Terry Eustace (Gold Label) invited various British Carp Study Group members to take their favoured lines with them one night to a B.C.S.G. meeting and he put them all on his line testing machine.

Nothing compared to P-Line Extrusion.

Never pay a lot of attention to what line says on the label as it is rarely accurate.

P-Line 0.34/0.35mm breaks consistently over 20lb knotted. 0.34mm is the sort of diameter you buy when purchasing most 12 and 15lb labelled spools and is my standard carp fishing line.

I hope the two bits above are of help.

Best wishes

Shaun Harrison.

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Which bait and size do you think I need for my Laroussi trip in April?

Shaun Harrison answers:

Definitely take some Rahja Spice with you. It has been a firm favourite at Laroussi for many years, particularly in the smaller sizes too. The Laroussi fish like 10mm’s but it is worth mixing the bait size a little. The lake record has fallen to Rahja Spice on more than one occasion. If I were going this coming year I would also take an alternative with me to ring the changes and that would probably be the Ghurkka Spice. I know they both have ‘Spice’ in their names but are very different to each other hardly sharing any ingredients at all other than the obvious eggs and chilli.

Hope this helps
Shaun

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21lb winter scaly

Winter is always the hardest part of the year for catching carp. This year I have been adjusting rigs and fishing different hook baits to try and get me that extra bite. I’ve been using pop up rigs lately and having some good results. The best fish being a stunning 21lb scaly mirror.

Last winter was a very hard time for me as I did about 30 sessions and blanked them all. I Lost fish so I was doing something right to get the bites but I just couldnt land them! Having so many blanks in a row really got my confidence to a very low point. That’s why this year I wanted to up my game and try and get a few fish.

So far I have had 7 fish in 7 sessions. Fishing on my local club water and a few day ticket waters, I have fished lakes about 2-3 days after they have thawed out and knew it was going to be tough I have also fished lakes that have been half frozen when I’m there  and I have still managed to get amongst a few. This just shows how much the carp love the Quest Baits I have been using!

Another winter 20 falls to Quest Baits

I have certainly had a better winter already than I did throughout the whole winter last year. When Shaun approached me to be part of the Quest Baits team I felt priviledged to be part of a company that makes such a fine quality of bait. I have had most of my fish this winter on Fruity Trifle. Although I did have a couple on Ghurkka fluoro pop ups including a 20lb mirror.

I am really going to put a lot of effort into fishing in future sessions, I can strongly reccomend to anyone who finds the winter months a tough time to catch carp just to chop and change rigs baits and the spots you are on.You can often have one rod over the bait and one rod you just cast around every 30 minutes to an hour this can make such a difference as the fish normally group up in the winter and once you have found the you should get a few! My killer tactic this winter has been chod rigs and pop up rigs with the fluoro Ghurkka pop ups (yellow).

All carp are most welcome at this time of the year.

Also I used a snowman rig with the fruity trifle bottoms and the chilli chocolate fluros (orange). Around the hook bait I scatter 20-30 baits just so if a few carp do come along it keeps them occupied going from bait to bait. I think bright baits are a very good thing to have in your armoury in the winter because they are brilliant to chuck anywhere and they catch the fishes eye, alot of fish take out of curiosity in the winter. Many lakes ‘shut up shop’ at this time of year as most anglers say. But if you are willing to put the effort in looking for any signs of fish and are prepared to try anything to catch them you will get a couple you can ask most professional anglers about winter fishing and they will say if you dont  think your on the fish move to where you think they might be. After watching a few winter vidoes of the man himself ‘Shaun Harrison’ http://www.questbaits.com/docs/videovault/videoList.php?category=Shaun’s%20Fishing%20Sessions it taught me that going light on tackle so you can move alot easier and bait a few spots to keep your options open.

All of these things can get you those extra couple of fish so the biggest thing I can say is be mobile keep your options open and dont be afraid to experiment!.

Thanks Lee Wheeler.

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It was time consuming and if I’m honest pretty boring rolling baits but by then the companies that would do it for you had appeared, manufacturing good baits that wouldn’t break the bank.  It didn’t take us long to recognise that they also did the job better than we did and bait making for me soon became a thing of the past.   I did carry on making my own pop ups for a time after that preferring cork ball pop ups to some of the baits that were available at the time. Things change and new ingredients are discovered and now even my pop ups come straight from the jar. Their buoyancy is guaranteed and identical for every boilie, no need to keep tweaking the rigs every time you put a new bait on.

One change to my fishing that buying bait from a company like Quest Baits made to my fishing was the ability to change baits to suit the situation. The range of baits, pellets and hook baits allows us to experiment in a way we never could before and make instant changes.  In the past it was likely we had filled a freezer with one type and size of bait and we would use it for the whole season or even many seasons.   This could be restrictive because as we all know now a change of bait, an alternative hook bait or even a different colour can make a difference to your catches. I usually travel now with at least three different boilies in the car. Often they are in different sizes too.  This is supplemented by Maximum Action Pellets and Micro Feed and glug for extra attraction in my mesh PVA bags.

Amazingly even this sometimes is not enough for me and recently I was looking for a more discreet hook bait for the winter.  I wanted a wafter something I could tailor precisely to the weight of the hook I was using.   I had experimented by trimming the sides an ordinary pop up so I knew it could be done in principal, I just wanted something that would last longer on the hair.  Quest Baits sell base mixes, pop-up mixes and flavours, so after a chat with Shaun I bought some tubs of Natural Pop-Up Mix and Fruity Trifle and Chilli Chocolate flavours.  I needed something to mix with the pop-up mix to take away some of its natural buoyancy and Shaun suggested semolina as it allows a decent leak out of flavour and doesn’t particularly alter the smell of hook baits – plus it won’t mess the rolling up. He did say by adding normal base mix to the mixes the hook baits would water log quicker and as the carp wouldn’t get to eat the hook baits then the semolina (available from most of the larger supermarkets) would be fine for what I wanted to do. After some experimentation I came up with a two to one mix, that’s two spoonfuls of pop-up to one spoon of semolina.  All my bait making equipment had been disposed of years earlier so the baits were hand rolled and cut into small irregular cylindrical sections.  So don’t let the lack of equipment put you of experimenting to produce your own unique hook baits.

Shaun can provide everything you need to create them apart from the semolina (he must be one of the few bait companies that doesn’t have a stock of semolina – they don’t use it) ensuring they complement your usual Quest Baits perfectly.  During tests in the kitchen sink the baited hooked drifted slowly down and lay flat on the bottom, exactly what I wanted.  I forgot to mention that I’ve also over flavoured them, because much of the time they will be used a single hookbaits. I intend to try them out soon and although in winter catches do slow down it will be interesting to see the results. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Cheers Ron Key

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With the drop in temperature bait choice is getting really critical now and can mean the difference between a long cold struggle for the rest of the winter or a bit of action.
Why risk a lot of possible blanks with baits that may not be totally suitable for cold water fishing?
Cast out a Fruity Trifle Boilie or a Rahja Spice and you know you are using something that has caught cold water carp from many different countries leaving you to only have to think about location and presentation.

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A big Cambridge mirror in a big frost.

29^th November 2011 and unbelievably it has taken until now for the winter to start  looking as though it is finally starting to cut in. The water I am currently fishing has finally seen the water temperatures start to drop this week to below 10C (40’s F) and combined with big winds there is a certain wind chill reminding me of what will surely come in the weeks ahead.

The water temperatures are still plenty warm enough and the carp still active but each winter when the waters drop below 10C (50F) they continue to drop quite rapid so to my mind winter although late is now starting to happen and my tried and trusted winter methods now come into play.

Anyone who has read much of my writings in the past will know my love of very small baits yet winter is the time when one rod will go in the opposite direction and is one of the few times of the year I would consider putting a 20mm hook bait on.

This has caught me so many cold water carp I guess in a way it is again being very different as so many other anglers finally start scaling their tackle down and using the type of baits I use all summer.

When reliant at times of a single hook bait attracting the carp’s attention I am happier with something easy to see but not necessarily bright and in your face.

Current hook baits out of my bait bag a few minutes ago.

My favourite way of achieving this is to first shave the side outer skin of a few 20mm standard shelf life bottom baits straight out of the bag but leaving the ends intact for the hair to pass through and retain the harder skin there.

I then transfer these shaved baits to a old pop-up tub containing a matching Glug and simply leave them to soak the glug right in over a period of however long it takes to use the tub up. The shaved sides of the boilies helps the boilies to take more glug in quicker than a standard boilie.

Notice I said Glug and not Dip?

Here at Quest Baits we produce matching Glugs and Dips for each of our boilies range. These tend to confuse a few people not being sure of the difference.

The Glugs are a liquid food source and you can’t really go over the top with these – they are not over flavoured being in human terms like a dilute drink which has been diluted and perfectly palatable.

The Boilie Dips on the other hand are much more heavily flavoured and designed for a simple quick dip of the hook bait rather than a hook bait soak. Again put into human terms like a dilute drink before the water has been added.

A single peeled 20mm boilies which has been soaked in Glug will be detected by any carp having a mooch around without the need for it to be bright and coot and tuftie attracting.

Give it a go it could just end up surprising you – particularly when combined with a tiny mesh stick of crushed boilies, Maximum Action Pellet and Microfeed in a mesh bag dipped also into the Glug for a few seconds before casting.

There we are another one of my winter tactics handed on a plate!

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Hello Shaun,

You may not remember but I promised to report back to you about how Ghurkka Spice fared against the Poisson Chat’s compared to Pineapple Crush on the reservoir I fish in France (Lac de Pincemaille/Rille).

Well sadly they loved it!

Any unmeshed Ghurkka Spice were noshed by the little buggers very quickly. I did try meshed Ghurkka Spice on the hair, but still managed to foul hook them anyway. Considering the number of Poisson Chats in the lake I reasoned that the carp probably weren’t getting the chance of any freebies anyway!

I even tried double 20mm boilies (one Ghurkka Spice and one Pineapple Crush) on the same hair as an experiment, within an hour or so and a few bleeps I reeled in to find the Ghurkka Spice completely gone but the Pineapple Crush untouched. This happened a couple of times without actually hooking the chats because I put the pineapple on the hook end of the hair (a potential good tip for the future when fishing Pineapple Crush alongside another bait the chats might like.

I think to summarise, a bit of a thumbs down for the Ghurkka Spice on heavily ”chatted” waters, but what a good test for Pineapple Crush against the chats! So no guesses as to what bait I’ll be taking to that water next year.

I hope this has been of interest to you.

Regards

Martin Park.

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Early 80's snow captures

There was a comment on facebook the other day that I responded to and thought I should add it here too.

Someone asked how important we think bait is.

My quick answer was…
‘I would say it is the most important thing. The best rig in the world isn’t going to be able to do its job if the fish isn’t stimulated enough to pick the bait up. There are periods when carp will eat almost anything but at scratching times when the fish aren’t really bothered about feeding then the tiny little extras added to the bait by some will make a massive difference. I always find the Carpology independent tank tests with different company’s baits very interesting and extremely revealing. I’d better not say much more or it will look like an advert but even with a great bait you still have to present it in the right area on a set up which will leg the fish up’.

It struck home to me after I had posted that just how important this issue is at this time of the year. A poor choice of bait will most certainly result in very few fish being triggered to have a feed  but more importantly it can in turn ruin other anglers chance of sport if those baits are picked up and then the carp find that they can’t digest them easily. – thus taking much longer to need to feed again which will affect the other anglers sport. Not only that but it can be very dangerous

a 1990's snow capture

feeding fish or any other animal food that it is going to struggle to get rid of. Carp are cold blooded so their metabolism is wholly governed by the water temperature. In cold water not only does the carp slow right down with its actions but many baits congeal and trap in many of the attractors/stimulants that are supposed to be encouraging the fish to have a feed.

You don’t need a lot of bait in winter so now is the time you can definitely afford to compete with anglers of all levels by using the best winter baits available with proven effectiveness for many years.

I am extremely proud of my own personal winter fishing achievements over the years having caught from holes in the ice on three separate venues as well as snow captures from lots of venues as well as several half frozen lakes. My first winter carp fell to my rods in 1977 and there haven’t been many years gone by when I haven’t  winter carp fished. I learned a long while ago what the carp like in the cold weather as well

A snow capture from last year

as what they can easily digest. I fed my own carp in my own lake for many years as well as my fish in my garden.

If I was to stick my neck on the line to give my top two recommendations it would have to be Fruity Trifle and Rahja Spice. Both baits have caught thousands of true winter carp for many years now and I know they will continue to do so. If ever you bump into me on the bank during the winter  – ask to see my bait. I can use anything I want but you will most definitely find one or the other or both in my bait bag. They are still the main 2 baits I use to compare new winter baits against.

If you are lacking in winter confidence there really is no need to worry about bait. If I’m not catching on either of those I have my location or rigs wrong.

Best fishes

Shaun Harrison

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We all know the stories of fishermen who are blaming the weather conditions, moon size or what else they come up with. Is that finding an excuse or is there some kind of truth in the fact that other factors can make our session fail or succeed? I think there a lot of those factors, the difference in ph-level of the water comparing to the bait you’re using is one of them.

I always try to do everything I can to have a successful session, the spot, set-up, rig and the bait are proven factors of the past. What if they let you down? Turn they all out to be rubbish at once or is there another factor why the carp won’t bite? I’ve experienced this the past year on my targetwater. It really got me in the head. My trust in reliable tactics faded away many times, but the thing that kept me going was that other locals weren’t catching either. There had to be something else what was making it that hard.

The water has a high PH-level naturally, which normally results in a very weedy lake. This should have happen this year too, but there came the long rainy period in June. It rained for three weeks, all of our family vacation plans disappeared, and so did the weed. Rain has a very low ph-level comparing to fresh water. So you can imagine that the amount of rain which we’ve experienced this summer could easily let the ph-levels on our waters drop massively.

With the disappearing of the weed, all of the natural food sources had nothing to stick up or on to. The result was that the carp wouldn’t have to search between the weedbeds for snails, larvae’s or other snacks, it became unnecessary for them to move around as much as they normally do. The result was a very tough fishing summer, I’ve caught some fish but not spectacular.

It was at the end of the season that I came up on the idea of mixing up boilies with different pH-levels, one was more acid and the other more alkaline. The thinking behind it was that I was convinced of the fact that the difference of ph-level of the bait comparing to the water should trigger the fish to feeding. Maybe it’s too scientific but I know that a different kind of ph-level can result in a big chemical reaction. We all know what happens if you mix up Coca-Cola and milk for example and in the chemical industry the mixing of acid and alkaline can turn out in a disaster. Before we end up having nightmares of our chemistry teacher, the fact was that the idea had to result in something, well it did indeed. I’ve experienced a more than successful overnight session wherein I’ve caught four fish weighing 17.6, 29.3, 33.07 and a new Dutch pb of 44.5 lb.

The plot is that it’s not always the case what you’re using but how you’re deploying it. A little bit of adjustment can make a big difference. Keep up thinking but keep it simple.

Mario Taal

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