Quest Baits Blog

Words and Picture by Stuart Forsdike:

This weekend I approached a new water. I d didn’t have time to grab the actual fishing rods but with a few hours spare I thought I would take the marker down and do as much homework as possible to get a good head start. On arriving at the water there were only 3 anglers. All in the deeper water (or so they told me). obviously not wanting to disturb them I worked my way round the lake looking for areas of silt or gravel and holes in old weed as well as depths etc.

This blog was meant to be about doing your homework but it turned into something a bit different. With a strong wind blowing into the deeper area of the lake most anglers were bivvy bound or seeking shelter. Whilst I worked my way round the lake I scared numerous fish with the marker rod. The fish were shoaled up in the shallower water (only 2ft) indeed it would have been the last place I would have expected to find them. It goes to show how important fish location is. There is no point sitting behind rods fishing blind when the fish are not in those areas.

Finding the fish is the biggest tip I can ever give anyone. If the fish aren’t in front of you, you can’t catch them!

Stuart

Words and pictures by Laurence Evershed:

During the colder months I use a completely different approach to the rest of the year for a few simple reasons. Throughout the winter there are only two main rigs I use, one is a zig rig and the other is a very simple pop up rig.

The concept behind using these two rigs for the majority of the winter is simple. During the winter months the water temperature drops dramatically causing the carp to become torpid (this means the move a lot slower and there whole body slows down this causes them to eat less and see less effectively).

Within this time the carp spend most of there time in groups in the mid- layers of the lake not really doing much so this brings me to the reason for using the zig rig in the winter because they are torpid they will sometimes be unwilling to drop down to the bottom to feed so the ‘zig’ lets me have a rig in the zone where they feel most comfortable.

The reasoning for the other rig is that because their body is running at a slower rate I believe they will also feed in a different way to the summer. In the winter I think they feed slower taking one mouthful at a time and rising up away from the bottom between mouthfuls. This means that a pop up rig will be more effective firstly because it is risen off the bottom so they are more likely to see it and secondly  because of the way I tie the rig only wrapping around the hair five times the hook point is always presented towards the flesh of the carps mouth as they rise up from the lake bed another thing I do is use a very large peace of putty more than enough to weigh down the bait this is because it will pull the hook in to the carps lip.

The other main thing I do on both rigs I use bright baits for instance my favourites at the moment are Magnum White and the Ultrabrite fluorescent yellow Ghurkka Spice ones also glugging the hook baits is always a massive edge and the longer they are glugged the better (so put yours in the glug now for next winter!!).

Thanks

Laurence Evershed

The prolonged cold, dark and often crisp nights of winter, followed by slippery drive ways and frozen window screens hardly bring on the urge to go carp fishing do they?

Or do they?

They do to me. I must admit to feeling a relative smugness inside me during the winter months and can easily warm to many memories of winter success over the years. It is a fact that most of my personal best carp over the years have actually fallen during the winter period. The majority of times I have slowly upped my best has been during the winter and I truly believe this is the best time of the year to sort the bigger fish out. Undoubtedly the fish slow up and rest up for much longer periods when the water is cold but the larger fish tend to keep that little bit more active. If everything is active then all well and good as every winter carp I catch seems to feel just that little more important to me than the same fish in the summer. Winter carp certainly give me a buzz!

So let us look at one of the little tricks I employ which can make all the difference between success and failure. continue reading…

Now is definitely the time to get on the Micro Feed.

I originally developed this product whilst fishing a difficult pit where the carp would follow the bream shoals around after spawning simply gorging themselves on spawn.

It became very difficult to get a take whilst the fish appeared to be preoccupied on spawn so I set about trying to mimic it but at the same time make it stand out much more than the natural spawn already there. After all you could wait a long while to get a take from a cow on a blade of grass couldn’t you?

The result of my experimentations is the Micro Feed.

Even after balling up it will still revert to looking like spawn.

It has multiple uses, I use it in stick mixes all of the time combined with broken boilie and our Maximum Action Pellets it helps achieve a 3 stage lengthy leak off of attraction as well as giving different visuals.

I use it in PVA mesh on its own this time of the year.

Micro Feed on its own in PVA mesh is how I fish it at this time of the year when I suspect the carp are preoccupied on Spawn. I want to give a small pocket of spawn and nothing else. to keep it more natural looking. Hook bait I keep very small and light. The Pimple Pops are great for this and I simply aim at a critically balanced bait for this lightly lightly approach.

By wetting your hands you will find you can mould the Micro Feed into a ball which can then be catapulted easily or in turn moulded around a method feeder. Although it will look like a ball of paste after you have done this it soon breaks back down into it’s spawn like appearance again once it enters the water giving a good spread as it bursts apart. Even after 24 hours if the fish haven’t come across your baited spots Micro Feed will still resemble spawn. It doesn’t break down to dust the same as most other feeds.

This really is a favourite product of mine and is an important part of my armoury at all times of the season but for now it really does give you a massive edge when the carp are physically looking for those pockets of spawn.

Last week I posted a catch report to our website and mentioned that I had caught the fish on an ultra light aerodynamic home made long range pop-up.

This has caused a fair bit of interest with anglers asking me how they can make their own. So here goes…

Everything I used apart from the eggs are available in the Quest Baits range.

First off I separated the white (albumin) from the yolk (yellow bit) of a normal hens egg. By doing this and only using the white of the egg for pop-up production you ensure the finished pop-up is much more buoyant than one made with both the yolk and the albumin. This is important to me as I like to use small baits particularly when distance casting but don’t like to drop my hook sizes to suit. So, by separating the white from the yellow I can ensure they will be as buoyant as possible.

So, with the white of an egg in a glass bowl (I usually only ever do one egg hook bait mixes) I added some of the Magnum White liquid flavour blend. I find it is difficult to go over the top flavour wise with pop-ups as the carp never get to actually taste them so I tend to add the flavour at a higher level than you would for a bottom bait – in most cases when utilising synthetic flavours as part of the attractor system this will also help to stabilise the finished baits (last longer before they go off). continue reading…

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! continue reading…