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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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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I started off by fishing a spread of Ghurkka Spice boilies over an area where I had seen a few fish show and after about 15 mins of having the rod out the bobbin pulled up to the top and line started to tick off the reel. I hit the take and I had the fish on. Unfortunately after about 40 seconds of having the fish on it came off, this was not a good start as someone else had just landed a fish and was in the lead!

I put the rod back out but everything went quiet for everyone so I decided to get my bag of dog biscuits and see if I could get the fish feeding confidently on the surface. After about 30 mins of constant feeding I had the fish feeding like mad, I didn’t have a controller float with me so I resorted to using an idea which a friend and I came up with which was using an apple core as the float. On the hooklink was a size 12 mixer hook and a trimmed down Ghurkka Spice pop up. The fish just werent having it. After having about 4 fish mouthing my bait and then spook off I decided to change hookbaits, I put on an 8mm cork ball soaked in Rahja Spice Bait Glug I cast the apple core and cork ball beyond the feeding fish and slowly drew it over them, within about 10 mins I had a fish stick its mouth out and suck in my bait the apple bobbbed under and I struck the rod hard. The fish weighed 11lb 6oz and that put me in second place shortly after one of the others were into a fish once landed his fish came in as 18lb 4oz which put me back down to 3rd place. It was game on now and I was trying my hardest to bag up on a few fish I got the rod back out and I was soon into another one, once this fish was weighed and landed it all kicked off I then had 3 more fish in about an hour and a half. I was now in 1st place with a very convincing lead. It came to the end of the match and I was the winner with a total of 5 fish and a total wieght of 68lbs.

Once again Quest Baits came out on top.

Thanks Lee Wheeler.

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Carp on the float.

Just returned from France where our quest for monsters was not going so well.  The main lake only produced a couple of the smaller fish between the four of us for the whole week. For reasons only they know, the carp were not cooperating, they didn’t show or feed making location and capture so difficult and frustrating.  To ease the pressure I spent a few hours on the adjoining lake where the residents were being a little more cooperative.

I returned to one of my first loves float fishing.   Improvising with what I could find in my tackle box I attached a small 4BB Crystal Waggler at both ends with float rubbers and tied on a short sinking braid hooklink with a size 8 hook.  A chopped down 10mm Special Crab boilie and a Fruity Trifle Pimple Pop were fished snowman style on a short hair and the whole rig was fished overshotted sinking the float and waiting for lifts.  I fished alternating between two weed beds that were pre baited an hour before fishing with chopped Special Crab boilies, Maximum Action Pellets all fed in balls of a new stick mix that Shaun had given me to try. This gave off a great cloud of tiny fragments of food rising and falling in the water column, fabulous fish attraction.  The fish soon gave away their location with mud clouds spreading throughout the weed and flanks and tails flashing in the murky water.  Fishing only a couple of hours in the heat of the afternoon while I rested my main swim on the other lake, I wasn’t sure whether the carp would oblige. I need not have worried, the first fish a 22lb mirror came very quickly. The float shot out of the water, lay flat and then zoomed away as the fish tore 25 yards of line off the reel.  This one came quickly to the surface and wallowed there exhausted after its run, and came easily to the net.  Fishing such close range I did wonder if I had spooked the fish and if it was time for a move but decided to try another cast.  This time a little further to the back of the potamogeton bed in nine feet of water with the float pulled up tight to the back of the weed.  By this time the bailiff was sat behind me chatting as I concentrated on the float.  Something he said distracted me and I finally broke concentration and turned to answer him.  He shouted bite, but it was too late and the fish took the bait and buried its self in the weed and cut my hook link.  How do they know when you are not looking?  Time to get back to the main lake, but not before baiting up for the return bout tomorrow.

+The next day my mate Dean fished with me.  We baited up two swims again about an hour before fishing. At the first swim Dean was soon into a fish a small one he said.  Changing his mind about the size half way through the prolonged fight he landed an upper twenty scaly mirror.  The commotion had cleared the swim so we moved to our second area.    This was much shallower and I was fishing in only about 3ft of now very cloudy water.  The first fish came quickly in the form of a 22lb mirror.  I baited up the swim with a couple of balls of ground bait as we unhooked it and very quickly had a bait back in the swim. A 20 followed and then an upper double, amazing sport.  On my last cast of the afternoon a piece of weed drifted up to the float as I watched it trembling and giving of those tiny tell tale concentric rings off ripples.  It slowly sank, under the weight under the weight of the leaf I thought, and held under the surface.  I could see it in the cloudy water through my Polaroid’s just sub surface.  Dean whispered he’s got it, strike, but I was unsure and waited.  Eventually after what seemed like an age the floated skidded to the right and disappeared.  I struck and the rod hooped over, and the weed bed disintegrated and mud clouds appeared all around as the fish tried to make open water.  Luckily I stopped it before it had a chance to get up a good head of steam and the light tackle held.  Dean soon slipped the net under a 29lb mirror, the biggest carp I’ve ever caught on the float, and the most fun I’ve had on a lake for ages.   It just shows that you can get blinkered in your approach. It sometimes it pays to ring the changes and try a new method, even resurrect an old favourite or tune it up with the addition of some Pimple Pops, Stick Mix and Maximum Action Pellets.

Cheers  Ron

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Hello Shaun! The next question from me.

The last time I go fishing a small lake and have caught some large carp. However, the bait completely taken over after 4-5 hours by the strong smell of rotting sludge. What kind of bait and flavors suggest that the baits can retain the smell for a long time? I think that is much more able to catch more carp breed.

Thanks in advance for your answer!

Best Regards: Gergely Pataki

Boilies soaking up liquid before baiting in a silty lake.

Shaun Replied:

Try soaking the baits in liquid before you go. The water from cooked hempseed is excellent for this or simply use lake water. By leaving the baits to soak up the liquid before baiting up they won’t be able to take so much of the silt/sludge smell thus retaining more of their own original smell and taste.

I usually fish around a bit though and try and find the areas the silt doesn’t smell so strong, you will usually find the carp prefer to feed in the less smelly areas. Slightly shallower areas should be less silty as the deeper areas act like a sump and collect the old leaves etc.

Hope this helps

Best fishes

Shaun Harrison

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When fishing for carp, do the carp shy off new baits because whenever I fish with boilies it will take a long time until Ii get a bite. Does this mean that I should pre soak the boilies?

Shaun Harrison Answers:

Hi Craig,

It isn’t usual for Carp to shy away from new bait, why would they? Carp are opportunist feeders and usually investigate and take advantage of a new food source. It is nearly always tackle and angler awareness that spooks them. However if the bait is too heavily flavoured then it could be that it takes a while for the taste to be palatable. A little bit like a cup of coffee with 4 spoons of coffee – it smells fine but will taste too strong for most.

Try cutting the outer skin off your hook bait once it is on the hair but leave the ends intact to keep it tougher where the hair enters so the bait will be less likely to be pulled off. This will let the flavour leak out quicker if they are over flavoured and vice versa if they are okay it will still speed up the attraction coming from your hook bait to allow the carp to detect it quicker.

Hope this helps

Shaun

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The result of a little bit of hook bait tweaking.

Words and pictures by Stuart Forsdike.

After watching several nice fish above my baits but not actively feeding I knew there was definately something wrong. I wondered whether it was the flavor (currently using chili chocolate). On watching the fish for a while I came to the conclusion it might be the round shape I was using. With everyone using the perfect round boilie could it be that the fish were associating this with danger? Rather than re shape a single boilie I decided to simply cut the sides of the boilie off to make it more a barrel shape and I also attached one of the brilliant Pimple Pops. The orange being my favorite colour!

The new shape served a number of purposes – the longer narrow shape offer the fish something different that they are not caught on, the shape is more difficult to eject form the fish’s mouth, but cutting the “skin” of the bait more flavour can be released and finally the pimple although small has enough buoyancy to lift and thus creating a mini snowman rig. That a lot of plus points.

After a blank night in the sun the fish moved over my baits again – this 22LB common may not be one of the manors monsters but certainly didn’t hold any fear when it came to barrel shape Chili Chocolate bait tipped with an orange pimple !!! I can’t wait to try the bait again and this time hope for one of the larger residents

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The old pit is about 170 acres and I would say contains no more than 100 carp (quite a daunting thought). Most of the carp have proved to be old looking mirrors of between about 18 to 23lbs, but as with all these sort of places there are always the stories of uncaught monsters that have been seen in the past. This sort of place keeps dragging me back, because you just never know.

When I first started fishing it, I knew next to nothing about the carp in the venue because no one else had really fished for them, so it was pretty much a case of working it all out for myself. The most obvious thing would be the importance of getting the location right, with so few fish, in such a large water. After a couple of exploratory sessions it soon became apparent that if you couldn’t find the fish then it wasn’t worth even fishing. Now I work full time so I am limited to a couple of days a week and so have to try and maximise my chances in a very short space of time.

It was very noticeable that the carp hardly showed themselves, but even so with a mixture of experience and water craft you could narrow the venue down to say about 20 acres where you felt the carp may be at any given time. One method that really helped me with location during the warmer months was to use sticks and bank sticks as markers (at regular intervals) in the water along the long shallows. I would put a couple of handfuls of bait around each marker and then wade out to them every couple of hours to see if any of the bait had gone. If any bait had gone then a rod would quickly be placed on that spot.

Another thing, which made the water really difficult, was the excessive amount of weed. It would be from top to bottom in any depths of less than about 14 foot of water. Now these carp loved the weed and this again made location really difficult. The fish would just ‘lie up’ in it without showing themselves. To overcome this, I would don the chest waders and wade for hundreds of yards trying to find the fish. It was amazing how close you could get to the carp without spooking them. This method helped me catch my largest fish (an immaculate 32lb common) from the venue. I spotted it in a weed bed and found a small clear patch very close by. Two handfuls of hemp and pellet along with a dozen grains of corn were placed on this patch and 4 hrs hours later I had a screaming run which produced the common. Now if I hadn’t been wading I would not have seen (or caught) this fish as you could see absolutely no sign of it from the bank.

The third method I used was when the cooler weather came and the fish moved out of the shallower water. I would bait regularly little and often to markers in deeper water. I would bait mainly with small dissolving items such as trout and csl pellets (the Quest mini pellet mix would be perfect) along with say a tin of corn and or maize. I didn’t want to bait with loads of boilies as I felt that if the fish didn’t come over that area for a week or so, then I could be left fishing over a load of rotten bait. I have seen other anglers do this since and they have caught very little. With the smaller items they will either dissolve or be eaten by smaller fish. If the carp are in that area then they will bully the smaller fish out of the way and still get to the feed. This worked quite well and brought me some nice fish  (mainly mirrors to 28lb +).

Now none of these fish are massive by today’s standards but they do give me the greatest sense of achievement every time I catch one (and I was in perfect isolation for the first 3 seasons as only myself and later on a couple of mates fished for the carp).

I haven’t fished the venue much over the last 3 or 4 years but I think I will keep my ticket for a long time and keep on popping back just in case one of those myths is true.

Cheers,

Pat Gillett

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This one came over clean smelling silt. Most of the swim was pretty foul smelling.

Matt Asks: I just wanted to ask a question about feeling the lead down after a cast. Do you always feel for the bump even if fishing on soft silty type bottom where it will be hard to feel any bumps and should I always recast if I don’t feel anything. Thanks Matt

Shaun Answered: Hi Matt, Yes I always feel the lead down it serves a dual purpose of not only giving a good idea what you are fishing over but also helps prevent tangles as the lead is sinking. Some places are so silty you can never feel the bump. These waters I simply smell the lead after winding in. If it smells of clean soil then I am happy to fish the area. If it smells unpleasant then I try other areas.
If you can usually feel the bump down and on the odd cast don’t then I always re-cast.

Hope this helps

Best fishes

Shaun

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