Reader’s Query: Baits For France?
Richard Turner wrote:Hi there, A group of us are going to France in august for the first time its only a 4 acre lake with an average depth of 5 foot with a gravel bottom with patches of silt in your opinion out of your baits which one would you take as your main hook bait and what size. The owner has boilies for sale at the lake but I’m not sure about using a strange bait, what advise can you give us? Thanks.
Paul Cooper Replies:
Richard
I Have been involved in the French carp scene for around 17 years, and one of the most difficult decisions is around bait.
First of all get in touch with the owners and try and ascertain the size of the carp that are stocked in the lake, and what other fish are in the lake. In my experience, most of the French lakes are stuffed with other species of fish, Bream, Tench, Rudd the dreaded Poisson Chat.
The species like Bream, Tench and Rudd are easy to get around. Increase the size of your baits. I always use a minimum of 18mils, usually 20 mils. This eliminates most of the problems that you will encounter from these nuisance fish, but even so you will still pick up the odd one or 2.
Now if you have a lake with poison chat, you have a major problem. I have fished lakes that have been infested with the dreaded little fish which rarely grow above 8 “ in length. From fingerlings to fully grown these little brats can whittle down an air dried 25 mil boilie to the size of a 4 mil trout pellet in around of an hour. There are ways around this, such as netting the baits, or using Tiger nuts. Shaun Harrison of Quest baits has developed thepineapple boilie” target=”_blank”> pineapple crush boilie for this purpose, the chats don’t like them. There’s something in the bait that puts the Chats off but encourages the carp to feed. With Pineapple crush it is best to fish small pockets of boilies to attract the carp. There is no need to fish mass beds of this bait.
Hopefully you have a poison chat free lake.
Another consideration is whether or not there are freezer facilities at your lake and how much bait will the freezer hold. I would look at taking between 8 and 15 kilo of boilies per person to the venue, so you will need a freezer with a capacity of at least 50 kilo for the 4 of you.
Don’t panic if there are no freezer facilities, you can air dry your frozen baits which reduces the need to keep bait in a freezer, or as I have been doing for the last 18months, use shelf life baits. .The Quest range of shelf lifes are as good if not better than frozen baits. Over the last 12 months I have been using shelf life 20 mil Rahja Spice and the new Liver B8. The Quest Shelf Lifes have a similar texture to the frozen baits, and are a good food source to the carp, and not just a container for flavour.
I have had the privilege of testing the Liver B8 boilie” target=”_blank”>Liver B8 for Shaun, and have had some excellent results, both in England and in France. This will without doubt be one of the best sellers in the near future.
To supplement the boilies take at least 10 kilo’s of trout pellets each or particles such as prepared hemp.
I hope this has helped your decision
Regards
Paul Cooper.
![[del.icio.us]](http://www.questbaits.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://www.questbaits.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Google]](http://www.questbaits.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://www.questbaits.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://www.questbaits.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://www.questbaits.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://www.questbaits.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
Hi Richard,
I would take either the Special Crab and/or the new Liver B8 to be released March 3rd. The Crab has been instant everywhere it has gone and is a food item the carp simply recognise as a food source right from day one.
The Liver is a bait I have been working on for a long while and made the final tweaks last summer whilst spending a lot of time stalking fish and watching their reactions to alternate versions with juggled ingredient amounts. I feel I can’t improve this bait now and have so much confidence in it the Liver was the only bait I took with me apart from a half used bag of Crab when I went over to fish St Christophe and Island lake last August.
I do like to incorporate a little background feed in my baited areas too. Similarly it is down to a confidence thing again but for a couple of years now I find myself carrying nothing more than Garlic Feast particle mix when visiting waters I don’t know.
Hope this helps
Best fishes
Shaun Harrison
Hi Richard
You’ve been given lots of good advice from Paul and Shaun and I would agree with most of what has been said already. I have used the Crab baits for years and at various stages of its development while field testing. I have caught everywhere I’ve fished with it including a number of forties (UK, France and South Africa) and a fifty from France - in almost every case the bait had never been used on the lake before and in one case the lake had hardly ever seen any boilies before. It would be my first choice but I have to say I have played around with a small amount of the Liver B8 and I’m going to give that bait a good go this year. I will always have at least one rod on the Crab so it will be interesting to see how it fishes.
Personally I would always take a 20kg sack of dried hempseed to prepare as I go along if self cooked particles are permitted on the lake. Two sacks between the two of you should be enough for the trip. I have used rehydrated boilies for a number of years and fresh hemp water is an important component and the cooked seeds are a carp magnet just about wherever you use them.
I also agree with Paul’s advice about other species at the lake - do find out before you go. If there are a lot of ‘nuisance’ fish like bream or tench and ESPECIALLY the dreaded poisson chats then you will need to think carefully about what bait to use. If the poisson chats are present then I’d go with a particle approach as they don’t like these - they don’t feed in cold conditions but as you are going in August then if they are there then they will find your bait! I would put out beds of hemp or other mixed particles (seed mix, garlic feast) and fish tigers or maize on top as hookbaits. I would also have at least one rod on pineapple crush with just a small bed of free bait around it - say thirty to fifty baits.
The only really different piece of advice I would give is that if there are no poisson chats and not large numbers of other species then I would use 10mm boilies in conjunction with particles - in effect using small boilies as a particle. Everyone goes to France thinking big fish = big bait. I have had loads of success with smaller baits over the years especially if everyone else is using 20mm plus baits.
Have a great trip and let us know how you get on.
Elie G
[...] one of my pet peeves is collecting all sorts of fishing lures and baits. So expanding my collection while being in different places in the world is another thing on my [...]