Quest Baits Blog » Paul Cooper

How to intercept carp patrolling the shallows

david — Tue, 18 May 2010 11:09:05 +0000

I have just returned from a week long trip from Sapphire Lake in France, which is one of the latest venues to be offered by Angling Lines.

On the second day of my visit I had made a decision to fish a shelf which stretched half the length of the lake, and went out for around 50 yards into the lake. I found around 3 ½ feet at 36 yards directly in front of me which very gradually became shallower towards the bank.

When I am in France, I usually select one area and fish all my rods on or at the side of the baited area. I had seen carp moving just below the surface on the shallows so I decided to change my approach to tackle this venue.

With the marker rod set at 36yards, I marked out all my 4 rods to the same distance. I then fished the rods in a fanned style. My left hand rod was at 90 degrees from the bank, with the other 3 rods set to marks on the horizon all to the right. This enabled me to fish the rods at different distances from the bank but all the same distance from my rod pod. I was hoping to intercept any fish coming onto the shallows from the depths to my right.

The ground bait that I was using was Shaun’s new Chilli Chocolate, in 15 and 20mil frozen boilies with hook baits being shelf life 10 mils Chilli Chocolate bottom and pop ups boilies.

I first fished hook baits only, picking up 3 fish within the first couple of hours.

As the evening approached I began to introduce the odd pouch of boilies into the swim with my catapult. The fish kept coming onto the shelf and I was getting a similar number of runs from each rod. By Wednesday I was feeding 3 handfuls of 15 and 20 mil baits onto the area that had just produced a fish.

Come Saturday morning I had landed 50 carp, mostly upper twenties and above, with 13 being between 30 and 38lb. This tactic is not guaranteed but if used in the correct situation it can result in some bumper catches.

Regards, Paul Cooper

Vacuum packed carp baits

david — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:59:35 +0000

I’ve been using an assortment of Quest shelf life and frozen baits since the company began. Despite the success I’ve had with the shelf life baits I still favour frozen baits over all.

However, as we all know one of the main problems with frozen baits is its deterioration during session fishing. When travelling to France you may expect there to be sufficient freezer space made available… but more often than not the freezer space soon fills, leaving bait unfrozen and unpreserved.

Well, I have found the answer…. vacuum packing!

For this I use an Andrew James Vacuum Sealer & it couldn’t be simpler to use.

Put the boilies in a vacuum bag & follow the instructions of the vacuum sealer unit, and voila, you have fully preserved boilies.

These can either then be frozen for an indefinite period or left unfrozen for at least a month plus. Because all the air has been extracted from the bag, the baits remain fully preserved.

I’ve also used the vacuum packing on tiger nuts, hemp, maize, and seed particle mix. The secret to vacuum packing particles is to rinse them thoroughly, drain as much water off as possible then vacuum pack. Any of these particles can be frozen for unlimited time and left unfrozen for at least a week.

Why not give it a try?

Regards, Paul Cooper

How do I catch Grass Carp?

paul.cooper — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:36:03 +0000

Philip Parker wrote:

I will be tackling a venue that contains a good head of large grass carp. The lake itself is quite shallow 3′-4′ and around nine acres in size. Can anyone offer some advice on trying to catch them. Of all the fish I’ve caught this one has eluded me. Surface baits are not an option at this venue. Any advice would be well received and appreciated.

Grass carp are lovely looking fish and a strange species as they are not easy to target. They will get caught on boilies, but this is more often than not in a water that has little or no weed. In my experience on heavily weeded waters they very rarely get caught at all.

Being basically plant eaters the best way to go about attracting them to your swim is with a plant based bait. I have found maize and sweet corn to be very good in this respect. If you put down a large bed of these particles you have a fair chance you’ll get the fish move on to it.

Over this I would suggest a popped up bait a few centimetres off the bottom. While they will pick bottom baits up this is not their natural feeding habit so you’ll mostly likely get more takes on popped up maize, for example.

They are very fragile fish that don’t fight that hard until you get them close to or on the bank. I often think that until you try to net them they don’t even realise they’ve been hooked.
Once close to the net though they often go balisitic and can wipe all your other rods out. On the back they are also very lively and need to be treated with care. They will often lose scales and get red on the flanks as the thrash around. I would say keep them wet, do you weighing and photos as fast as you can and get them back in the water. Under no circumstances sack them.

Hope this helps.

How to accurately present loose feed and your hook bait

paul.cooper — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:29:56 +0000

by Paul Cooper;

: 40lb+ carp caught with accurate spodding

One of the most productive methods for multiple captures of any species of fish, is by accurate presentation of both loose feed, boilies and the hookbait to a small area in open water.

The first task is to locate a possible feeding area that is within casting distance, to present a carpet of feed and your hookbait. The requirements for this are:

1) A marker rod

2) A spod rod

3) 2, 3 or 4 Fishing rods.

The first rod that you should use is the marker rod which can find the depth of water, the contours of the lake bed and the texture of the make up of the lake bed.

Once a fishing spot is located, allow the float to rise to the surface and pick a point on the skyline that the float is lined up with. Either record this or memorise the location.

Wind the line back until you feel the marker hit the lead on the line, so that the marker is now on the lake bottom. Mark up the main line of the marker rod, at the butt ring of the rod with electrical tape or pole elastic.

Once you are happy that it is properly marked, reel in the line.

Our next step is to mark up the spod rod and the fishing rods for that that baited area.

To do this, place 2 bank sticks, say 4 meters apart.
Take the marker rod and secure the marker and secure it at the base of one of the bank sticks.
Pass the line around both bank sticks bearing in mind each length of line is a 4 meter length.
Count the number of lengths of line that you have passed around the bank sticks, until you come to the electrical tape or pole elastic on the main line. So if you have 10 lengths of line which equals 40 meters, along with 3 meters of line extra towards the reel, you are fishing a distance of 43 meters.
Wind all the line back onto the reel and move onto the spod rod.
Secure the spod to the base of a bank stick, and again pass the line around both bank sticks. Pass the line around 10 times again leaving 3 meters of line towards the reel. Mark the line with electrical tape or pole elastic and reel the line back onto the reel.
Follow this procedure with your fishing rods, only this time for each rod, secure the lead and hook bait to the bank stick. Again at the 43 meter mark mark up your line.

You have now accurately marked up all your rods. There is no need to put the marker rod out again.

Having located the memorised point on the sky line, cast the loaded spod rod until the electrical tape or pole elastic mark is at the Butt ring. Repeat this and you can accurately present a bed of bait.

The baited rods can be cast out without the marker rod being out in the water, again placing baits at a point when the mark is at the butt ring.

You can recast the baited rods or spod rod as often as you like, as all the rods are accurately marked.

Tight Lines,

Paul Cooper.

Homemade Boilies

paul.cooper — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 07:44:01 +0000

Mike wrote:
Hi all, I’m planning to make my own boiles in the near future, after buying the base mix,then the additive,etc etc, I’m wondering could you give me a basic guidline on how much bait I would get from a 1kg basemix?

Hi Mike,
Most of the commercial base mixes come in 500 gram bags. Depending on the density of the base mix, will determine if a 4, 5 or even 6 egg mix is required. 5 medium sized eggs weigh around 350 to 400 grams, add some liquid additives to your mix and the total weight should be around 1 kilo, give or take 50 grams.

Your 1 kilo mix should make you 2 kilo’s of boilies. Following boiling of the baits, which ranges from 1 minute to 3 minutes, the boilies need to be air dried. If you want a boilie that still maintains a softer inner, either reduce the boiling time or reduce the drying time.

I personally like to totally dry my baits, which obviously reduces the overall weight of your finished product. For example 10 kilo’s of fresh boilies when fully air dried will be reduced to anything between 7 and 8 kilo’s. Hope this has helped

Regards, Paul Cooper

Carp Care on the Bank

paul.cooper — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 20:38:42 +0000

By Paul Cooper

Trophy shot of a 44lb 2oz carp

Carp fishing has come on leaps and bounds over the past 20 years with carp care being at the forefront of the conscientious carp angler.

Even the sacking of carp is slowly decreasing with a more carp fisheries, banning the sack altogether. This has come about as a result of the occasional angler abusing the carp sack, by retaining a carp well beyond a safe period and causing unnecessary stress in doing so. The answer to this is in self photography which I have covered in a previous blog.

Secure weighing point

It’s stressful enough for the carp being hooked and brought to the bank then netted, so lets make the time it spends on the bank has comfortable as possible.

Before you even cast a line out, prepare your fishing area to receive a captured fish.

These steps may appear straight forward but they are necessary.

1 Assemble the landing net and have it within reach of the area for landing the fish.

2 If possible locate a fixed point which is at a reasonable and safe height to hang your scales in the proximity of the fishing area.

3 Fully wet your weigh sling and zero the scales in readiness to weigh a fish.

Wetting the fish

4 Have an adequate sized unhooking mat strategically positioned near to the area that you will land your fish.

5 Have a bucket of water in readiness, near to your photographing and weighing area.

6 If you are doing self photography, make sure that your camera is ready on a tripod with the air release system in place or your remote at hand and not packed away in a bag.

7 Have some form of antiseptic or wound seal available.

Now you are ready to fish.

Let’s skip the hours or days of wait for that first run and slip that carp into the net. With the carp safely netted, thoroughly wet the weigh sling, and zero the scales.

Wet the surface of the unhooking mat, especially in hot weather.

Remove the netted carp onto the unhooking mat.

Unhook the carp and transfer to the weigh sling.

Secure the sling which should safely be sitting on the unhooking mat.

Place the weigh sling on the scales and weigh the fish.

Applying antiseptic

Return back to the safety of the unhooking mat and prepare to take your trophy shot. At this point the carp has possibly been out of the water for few minutes and its stress levels are building up. Now is the time to wet the fish down with the water from the bucket. If the fish is thrashing about or has not settled, cover up its eyes and wait for the opportune moment to start taking the pictures.

The fish is almost ready to be returned to the water. Check for sores, lifted scales or line marks or mouth damage. If there is any, then treat each cut or sore on the fish. Now you can return the fish to the water, which needs to be safely secured in the unhooking mat or the weigh sling. Release the fish and remain with the fish until it freely swims off. This may take a few minutes for the fish to gain its strength; you caught it so you can remain with the fish until it swims off back to the safety of the lake.

Safely returned

That’s the first carp; now prepare everything again for another capture.

Tight Lines, Paul Cooper

Placing your carp baits by wading… dead accurate!

paul.cooper — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:25:49 +0000

By Paul Cooper

There are many options for accurate baiting and bait presentation. Probably one of the most neglected is wading out your baits to give you that perfect presentation.

On 90% of waters this will not be possible, due to depth, silt or wading restrictions, but if it is possible then why not give it a try.

On a local lake that I fish the depths of the waters quantify the use of chest waders. With depths of around 3 to 3 ½ feet, getting in the water in chesties is not a problem.

Prior to this I would have already have done my plumbing work with a marker float to ensure that wading is possible. Care still has to be taken as there a some large areas of deep silt and weed. I initially take out my landing net handle to use as a prod to ensure that I am not walking into a silt hole or walking off or onto a ledge.

Now there may be some of you that are horrified that that I am disturbing the carp from the margins and scattering them to the far end of the lake. Most estate lakes, as with the one that I am talking about, are used to graze cattle etc.

Cattle love to wade in the margins. You often see the carp cruising around them as if they are not there. The carp will feed, cruise and even bask in the sun, not disturbed by all the commotion, being kicked up by these giant beasts.

So why should a lonely angler wading out into the lake disturb the fish?

As long as you take your time there should be no problems. Even if you spook a few carp, they should return to see what pond life has been disturbed. In my earlier days I used to spend a lot of time tench fishing, I would rake and disturb the lake bottom as much as possible prior to and even during a session to disturb the invertebrates and bloodworm that were hidden in the silt. This created a feeding frenzy, resulting in some multiple catches.

Why not for Carp?

On some waters, wading is forbidden, but if it is allowed you may like to take advantage of the situation. You will find small clear patches in the silt, of around 1 to 3 feet wide that have been burrowed out by carp feeding on bloodworm. I don’t care how good an angler you are, you will not find these features with a marker rod.

What about that hole in the weed. Ok marker work will find a clear patch, but after how many casts?

Now wading around in your chosen area for ½ an hour or so can get you an accurate picture of the lake bottom and its features, not only for that session, but for many future sessions.

When you have located what is believed to be a feeding area the bait placement couldn’t be easier. Just lower the bait onto the lake bottom and scatter either loose feed, say hemp or pellet, a scattering of boilies and then it’s a walk in a direct line back to the fishing location on the bank.

It is now time to mark the line on the rod so that the bait can be returned to the same location on a recast.

Note the direction of the line to the baited area, take a sky line reading and either memorise the location of the sky line or make a written note of it. If you feel that you want to put 2 rods on the same area. Pace out the marked up rod on the bank side, then walk out the second rod to the mark on the line and mark the second rod.

You’ve now got 2 accurately marked rods to cast to that baited area.

What could be simpler?

Paul Cooper.

Weighing Carp to Obtain True Weights

paul.cooper — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:25:01 +0000

By Paul Cooper;

Have you ever caught a carp, weighed it accurately and then a few days later the same fish is caught weighing 2 to 3 lb heavier by another angler.

Watch some of the angling video’s on the internet web sites and you can witness for yourself, examples of fish being weighed in-correctly.

I have in fact caught a feeding fish at 9.30 am and returned the fish for it to be caught later at around 11.30pm that evening by another angler, weighing in at an extra 3lb.

Do you think that is possible?

No! It is not.

So why do anglers claim these exaggerated weights. Is it ignorance, self esteem, or simply knowingly cheating?

Let’s first of all go into the basics of what is required to land and weigh that trophy carp.

Adequate sized landing net.
Large enough unhooking mat
Large weigh sling
Good accurate weighing scales
Firm and sturdy weighing location (If possible).

Read on if you want to know how to add those few pounds to your trophy carp…

1. To add at least 1lb 8oz to the weight of your fish, support the scales from the bottom, this will guarantee an over exaggerated weight. All fishing scales are designed to be supported from the hook or handle on top of the scales.

2. Zero your scales without the weigh sling being soaked in water prior to placing the fish in for the final weighing, or better still zero the scales without the weigh sling. Both these options can add a further 1 to 3 lbs in weight to your final weigh in. You might not think this happens, it does and it will carry on doing so.

Correct procedure for weighing a fish.

Suspend the scales by the upper most point which should be a handle or metal loop.
Thoroughly wet the weigh sling.
Place the wetted weigh sling on the lower hook of the scales and zero the scales.
Remove the sling from the scales and safely place the fish into the sling.
Secure the sides of the sling and return the sling back to the hook at the bottom of the scales.
Support the scales from the uppermost point and weigh your fish.

Follow these simple rules prior to weighing each fish, and we should all have a correct picture of what our fish weigh.

Paul Cooper

Carp Fishing Self Photography:What you Need to Know!

paul.cooper — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 09:37:17 +0000

by Paul Cooper
One of the finest aspects of carp fishing is arriving at a venue to find that you are the only one the lake. Peace tranquillity and the choice of swims, you cannot beat it.

But what happens when you capture a specimen fish that you want to record on camera.

With most cameras there are facilities that will enable you to fix your camera to a tripod. Once the camera is on the tripod you need to accurately focus on the area that you intend to take your pictures and then you need a means of taking that photo shot. Another angler or passer by, maybe? You are on this lake and there is no-one around.. Do you sack the fish until someone does arrive or do you think of the welfare of the carp? Now my answer is self photography.

Most cameras come with some form of self timing operation that enables you to take either a single photo or multiple photos, usually after a 10 second delay. This allows you to press the photo capture button, return to the fish on the mat, pick up the fish and hope that you have both yourself and the fish in the focus screen. This is a bit hit and miss.
What is the answer?

1/. Camera with a flip screen, eg Canon PowerShot A640 £150

2/.Camera bracket. Jessops or Firstcall Cable Release Adaptor Bracket £19.99

3/. Air release system. Jessops or Fisrtcall air release 20 foot £11.99

Firstly you need a camera ideally with a flip screen, for example the Canon PowerShot A640, which has the self timing facilities and a flip screen.

Secondly you require an air release device and an attachment bracket. The air release system is attached to the camera via the bracket.

The air release devices come with sufficient air tubing to extend from the camera to the back of the unhooking mat where you can safely operate the device. To operate the air release, place the air bulb so that it can be operated by depressing it with either your foot or your knee. One of the aspects of this type of camera is the high quality of the photographs which at present is up to 10 mega pixels.

An infra red light that partially lights up the target area even on the darkest of nights, allows you to make the relevant adjustments for that trophy shot. If the photo is out of focus, or your chosen subject is out of the photo scene, then there’s only one person to blame. You!

Paul

How would you tackle a new UK lake?

paul.cooper — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:43:11 +0000

Gareth Meyer wrote;

I was just wondering if you could give me some advice?? I am planning a session in July at a complex I have never fished before called white springs lake in Swansea, do you know it? This is what I know about the lake,

its a 10 acre lake averaging 6-9ft in depth with a few areas going to 14ft deep and one area 17ft in depth.
its has 9 islands with an average depth of 3ft surrounding water, with nearby shelves at each island
its has a large head of carp, some over 40lb, several over 30lb and numerous 20s
March 2008 has seen 5 carp over 30lb landed
Yellow baits with pop-ups working well
The margins are around 3ft deep and seem to be productive during warmer months
There are a few groups of large lily pads in the lake

What approach/approaches would you think about taking if you were going to fish this venue?
what methods would you consider best to use and what baits would you take with you?I was thinking…
Rod 1 = use a method feeder approach to a feature i.e. island and/or shelf, with a high attractant groundbait including pellets, hemp seed and maggots within the groundbait. The hookbait being hair rigged sweetcorn and/or maize, maggots and boilies. (try all to see which one produces)

Rod 2 = I was going to fish in a margin using hair rigged tiger nuts with maybe a dynamite stick or PVA bag to present a tight, neat area of bait.

What do you think? If you could get back with possible answers to my questions im sure it would help me out.
Thanks very much
Gareth Mayer

Paul Cooper replies:

Gareth Mayer from Stoke-on-Trent asks advice on fishing a 10 acre lake in Wales that is heavily stocked with carp as advertised to over 40lb. The lake as 9 islands and depths varying from 3 foot to 14 foot and has a 2 rod limit.

Gareth, I have studied the web site of the lake that you are talking about. From the description given on the web site it would appear that this can be described as heavily stocked water with mixed weights of carp, It would appear that the majority of anglers are using smaller hook baits which includes plastic corn, small, boilies along with the method mix.

From the literature that I have read it would appear that it is runs water that will produce far smaller fish than the larger specimens. As there are no bait restrictions I would consider using good quality baits such as Quest Rahja Spice, Special Crab or the new Liver B8 boilies in either the 15mil or 20mil size. You may think that the size of bait is ridiculous and can only be used abroad. Be different and you will catch the bigger and better fish that are wised up to the standard baits used.

If you have got an extra rod to plumb the depths of the lake, use it well to ascertain not only features in the lake but the texture of the lake bottom. Find a good hard spot that the fish have cleared through regular feeding, near to or on a feature in the lake.

Use the larger boilies in conjunction with a bed of well prepared hemp and trout pellet, spodded out to this selected area. Mark your rods to correspond with the location of your marker rod and accurately cast to this baited area.

There are plenty of examples on the Quest Baits and Angling Lines Web sites to assist you in accurate baiting technics. I know that this approach may be totally alien to most anglers on the complex, but give it a try, I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results that you will get.

Regards, Paul

Quest Baits Blog » Paul Cooper

How to intercept carp patrolling the shallows

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Vacuum packed carp baits

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How do I catch Grass Carp?

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How to accurately present loose feed and your hook bait

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Carp Care on the Bank

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Placing your carp baits by wading… dead accurate!

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Weighing Carp to Obtain True Weights

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Carp Fishing Self Photography:What you Need to Know!

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How would you tackle a new UK lake?

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