Quest Baits Blog

Question from Mark Lee Holbrook:

What amount of bait on average would one need if going France for first time for a week?

Answer from Shaun Harrison:

Hi Mark, it depends so much on the weather conditions at the time and the amount the fish have seen in the past – how clued up/educated they are. I find I use far less bait these days when I go to France than I ever have in the past. That perhaps surprises you as I should be telling you to purchase loads and make me rich!
Seriously though I tend to fish in the same way as I do in the U.K. I always carry more bait than I need – just in case, with the view to bringing it home again if not used.

I tend to fish just one widespread baited area rather than 3 separate ones and keep the bait trickling in the one area rather than dumping a load in at once. I don’t think I have got through more than 15kg of boilies during the trip on my last couple of trips but have had plenty available should they suddenly start to get through it – this happened a couple of years ago at Margot where I ended up using most of what I took.
Generally speaking I like to start with a ‘taste’ for them – just a couple of kilo in differing sizes then watch how things progress.

Mark replied:

Hi shaun. Thank you for your views. That what I thought I would do trickle the bait .I heard so many different views of anglers taken 60/80kilo’s of bait been looking Angling Lines as well a few others. These marketing dvds/ web site don’t help matter showing all good fishing lol.

Shaun again:

This may help a little – pretty much sums up how I set about my fishing. http://www.questbaits.com/docs/videovault/approaching/index.html

Mark replied:

Cheers mate wished every one was like you. Helping other Anglers in stead of all secrets all time

Shaun again:

We are a dying breed LOL!

and so on. This one came to my personal facebook page but is obviously very relevant here.

I received a email yesterday asking if there was any way of slowing down the dissolve rate of our boilie matching paste baits.

Now this is always a little bit of a compromise how fast you allow them to dissolve as the quicker they dissolve the greater the spread of attraction leaching out of the baits in the area being fished so personally I like them to slowly break away.

However not every one does so yes it is possible to slow the break down time.

I have used different things for this in the past but I guess the most readily available ingredient in most kitchens is good old plain flour.

Get a little on your fingers, scoop out a little paste then mould the plain flour into it. This should be enough to slow the break down time a little. Alternately Arrow Root or Egg Albumin can be used but if you really want to slow it down try corn flour.

Hope this perhaps helps others wanting to slow the break down time of their paste baits.

Best fishes

Shaun

The swim simply looked right

I must admit I went to bed last night not particularly expecting to be doing much fishing this week-end. I re-loaded the open fire in my bedroom with logs before climbing into bed thinking I would have a nice leisurely day to-day.

I’d been unable to do a night this week-end due to the bitterly cold weather we have had these past 2 days and not having a dog sitter – I simply couldn’t get out. It never stopped me in the past but I have to be fair to Brook my carp dog. It’s simply too cold for her at the moment.

My body alarm woke me and got me out of bed at the usual time, so much for the lay-in I had kidded myself I’d have. Downstairs and I sat at my table drinking the first coffee of the day and watching the sun in the East start it’s morning ritual.

There had been a covering of snow during the night and my garden pool was still frozen as it had been for the previous 3 days. I finished my coffee before  Brook slithered herself out of bed and awkwardly walked her way to my side. She does seem to take a few minutes to get her joints working properly first thing in the morning these days. Then  again I guess I’m the same. continue reading…

Andrew Swain's 54lb October Common

A years fishing and I’m now coming to the end of my guiding for the year after what can only be described as a fantastic last month through October having  landed so many big carp with an incredible 45 of them over 40.00lb commons up to 49.05 and yes three 50′s to 54.05 – what more could I want?

Well I wanted to go fishing for me, to see what I can do on my own and to relax a bit. After all I have worked so hard all year and believe it or not this was only my second trip this year for myself. My first venture out was back in March was with another guide Gareth where we had a crazy night with 15 x 30’s 6 x 40’s to 47.04lbs and I had a new PB of 52.05!

As a guide you see you just don’t get to put a rod out for yourself that often anyway. It’s not possible, people just take it thinking it’s for them. Now that’s okay but does get a little tiresome sometimes. So now I don’t bother at all. continue reading…

Written by Ron Key.

I’ve been using plastic or imitation baits now since they were first marketed, and I’ve had success with plastic tiger nuts, sweetcorn, maggots and boilies.  In fact I’ve been re-using the same plastic tiger nuts for four or five years now. They are in my tackle box at the moment and it’s unlikely that they smell of anything other than the last water I fished.  Like many others I only started using plastic baits to combat crayfish and was pleasantly surprised by their success as fish catchers.

Recently I got involved in a discussion about their effectiveness, the attractiveness or otherwise of the plastic smell, and that many anglers had no confidence in their ability to catch fish using them.  I know of one angler who was fishing a water heavily infested with signal crayfish and containing some very large carp who gave up his syndicate ticket. He needed the plastic hookbait to deter the crayfish but could not accept that he could catch carp with plastic. continue reading…

Butterfly rig and conventional round bait

This is a little dodge I have done a fair bit over the years when nuisance species have been a problem and one that has resurrected  itself in my mind again this last week.

I had someone contact me on Facebook asking if I could give any tips on avoiding Bream. the water he’s fishing is stuffed with bream and has a very low density of carp. It was the carp he was seeking and was running out of ideas.

I ran through the usual of avoiding all types of pellet and fish meal type baits which the bream love and then went along the lines of larger baits etc. It turned out he had already gone along these routes but was still catching bream on double 20mm boilies.

I had the same problem many years ago whilst fishing the River Trent for carp – I really struggled to avoid hooking bream. I did a few things then which certainly cut the bream catch rates down. continue reading…