Quest Baits Blog

Words and pictures by Pat Gillett:

I have just got back from a week’s social in France with my non-fishing kid brother David. He wanted to see what all the fuss was about fishing in France. I was his gillie for the week, finding clear spots, placing the baits etc. I must have done a decent job has by Tuesday he was already asking me ‘where are we going next year?’

We travelled down on the Friday and stopped in a lovely little campsite right by the side of the River Marne in Epernay. It was obvious from the brown colour and the height of the river that France had, had a very wet spring like the one we have just had. This became even more apparent when we got to the lake and found that the water level was actually coming over the front of the stagings.

The lake was very weedy at our end and was very much uniform in depth ranging from 7 1/2 feet to 9 feet in depth. It had steep margins that just fell straight off to about 8 feet. On arrival I spent a couple of hours leading about and marking the lines for the first night. Whenever I get to a new water I never put much bait in on the first night and this was to be no different has I put no more than 40 boilies over any of the rods. I put 2 rods each in open water and one rod each to the far margin at the bottom of the shelf. Baits were a mixture of the Quest Rahja Spice and Magnum White Boilies. The first night produced 2 upper doubles to my far margin rod but nothing to any of the other rods. continue reading…

I chose to start off in the deep water swim 31.

With my Grenville season fast running out I was desperate to get back over there after the events of the past couple of weeks which had been kind to me despite very few fish coming out. I knew they were turned on and tuned into the Magnum White. I just needed to get myself there and into a swim that gave me a good chance of action.

Friday I started work particularly early to hopefully clear my desk and allow myself an early escape. The journey went without hitch and a hour and a half after leaving home I was driving along the track to the car park. My heart sank, I had arrived early but it looked as though everyone else had the same idea as me but arrived earlier. There were over 15 anglers already pitched up.

I looked where each person was set up and the two swims I fancied from what was left were either 25 as there was plenty of space either side still, or 31 simply because I’d had the suspicion the fish were holding up in the deeper water and with a drop in air pressure more would do too.

I cast the marker into 25 and two of the spots that had been kind to me in the past appeared to be weeded over so they weren’t being fed on much. With other anglers arriving by the minute I dropped into 31 which put me on the end of a line of fellow B.C.S.G. members Phil Calloway and Paul Miller. Phil had received action earlier in the day and although his swim was only 2 away from the one I chose the swims are well spread so as to not interfere with anyone else’s water. At least I knew there were or had been fish in the vague area. In fact both Paul and Phil had seen a decent show of fish at first light. continue reading…

4 hours on a February afternoon.

I’m sure when Shaun was designing the new ‘Absolute’ range he didn’t have barbel in mind, but as soon as I saw and smelled Absolute Seafood I had to try it.

I had no intention of fishing today, but the weather was mild and I knew the river was fining down. A quick check of the river level on the EA website and I knew exactly where I wanted to be. Sorry but I can’t tell you where!

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/floods/riverlevels/default.aspx

It took minutes to load the gear in the car, a couple more to pick up the sandwiches from the garage and within an hour I was there.  Then disaster, there were four rods, a bivvy and a team of car door slammers in my banker swim.  I walked downstream around the bend to get as far away as possible and found another slack area, no back eddy here but a steady flow that was manageable and a clearly define crease running along its edge. continue reading…

Rod bending action on the first day of the year.

I am not one for making new year resolutions but I guess deep down for a while now I have promised myself a little more time angling on my local patch and to try and not keep pestering the carp week in and week out. It is so easy to find yourself in a routine simply because it suits. For years now I have pointed my Land Rover bonnet south or west and driven for a couple of hours for most all of my angling and in doing so I invariably pass so much incredible fishing along the way.

It wasn’t always like this. I started to travel simply because I had to travel if I was to be able to fish for the size of fish that used to seem so important to me. But as the years have moved on and I have grown, the fish have too and now I have fish on my doorstep which are much larger than the fish I used to have to travel for a couple of hours to reach. Having said that, I’m not size motivated at all these days. I haven’t been for years as in my mind the venue, the methods, the people and to a certain extent the security, come much higher on my list of priority than the size of the fish these days. Okay, obviously it is a massive bonus if I can combine everything and still have big fish to angle for.  continue reading…

What incredible weather we have been having. As always I keep a close watch on water temperatures through the winter months and despite catching a few carp on New Years day I couldn’t ignore how warm the rivers were getting and the barbel were calling me.

I managed to get out for a couple of hours on a small river and was rewarded with a couple of nice chub. Really nice fishing wandering around with one rod and lowering apple cored Rahja Spice boilies with a Rahja Spice paste wrap into various likely looking holes. Really rewarding and ‘proper angling’ with me feeling really content after getting out there and finding the fish rather than sitting and waiting for them to find me.

Later in the day after getting a few jobs out of the way the rivers were still calling so I decided to spend a couple of hours trying for the barbel on the River Trent. The Trent is still quite high so I was going to have to anchor my baits in place and build a swim with big cage feeders. continue reading…

Friday 5^th October – River Dove

10lb 4oz

This was a quick splash and dash session with a mate from work, in a quest to get him his first double figured barbel. I chose a very lightly fished stretch where we could fish 2 swims that were relatively close together.

We didn’t start fishing till about 5.45pm and at about 6.45pm my downstream rod produced a slow pull round which after an excellent fight saw nice fish of 10lb 4oz in the net. The whittled down 15mm Special Crab and paste combination doing the damage.

I fished on till 11.30pm with no further indication, but to be honest for the last 3 hours, I knew I was in the wrong swim as the river was rising and the debris coming downstream in the fast flow made the fishing very difficult. My mates swim was slightly easier to fish, but unfortunately he managed to lose 2 fish, admitting later that he wasn’t prepared for the power of the fish, but at least he did witness his first double in the flesh.

Weather wise a perfect night for fishing with low cloud and a warm breeze with an air temp of 11 Deg. C, just a shame the river was rising.

Saturday 6^th October

A totally different night to last night with a clear bright sky and a grass frost by 9pm. The river though was falling and I was fishing a different stretch anyway, where the flow was far more sedate, and so the fishing was much easier.

The same set up was employed, although one rod carried a 16mm pellet as hook bait. I fished from 4.30pm to 11pm and had 2 barbel, which unusually turned out to be exactly the same size, they were both bang on 9lb 15oz (definitely different fish).

Both fish again falling to the Special Crab with nothing coming to the pellet. This if like previous seasons will happen more and more as the year progresses and the boilies and paste will far outscore the pellet

continue reading…