Quest Baits Blog

By Roy Van Goor

Early season is often a good time for margin fishing. As the water temperature rises the fish will start to patrol in the shallower water… and often that means the margins get visited.
To trick the carp in these situations I often use a critically balanced hookbait and the best way to do this is by using a pop-up that’s presented just above the baited area. I create mine a little differently to most… instead of putting the counterweight on the hooklink I prefer to place it on the hair itself.

To do this I put a little bit of lead tight against the bait on the hair. In my experience around 0.3g of lead will balance a 15mm pop-up. continue reading…

By Jamie Simpson

Carp fishing has certainly been developing at an amazing rate over recent years. Just the other day I was sat having a chat with a good mate of mine and we got on to the topic of bait.

Now this conversation went down the route of how much bait you would use in certain circumstances, which has got my brain really working.

In my early days this bag would have lasted me weeks

Going back to the late eighties and very early nineties I would knock up a four egg mix and expect it to last me a couple of weekend sessions at the very least. Well I reckon that a four egg mix equates to about a pound and a half of 14mm baits, which would be a couple of hundred at the most. Generally that would be it, no pellet, hemp, corn or anything else.  On arrival I would generally put in a couple of pouch fulls and if I caught I would add another pouch of boilies and so on. I remember putting in half a bag one day and worrying about ruining my chances.  It’s crazy to think that way now but I was naive at the time and having come from a coarse background of fishing a few maggots and the odd grain of corn, 14mm boilies seemed so big. continue reading…

By Scott Ratcliffe

I’ve been playing with salt for a long time now, here I’m going to show a tip on how to use it.

Going back to my days when working at Dream Lakes in the beginning of the summer months, when the weather was just starting to warm up, I would use a salt tablets in my PVA bag with chopped up boilies. This method worked well and helped put some good size fish on the bank.

When I returned to England I tried to source the best salt to use, and after a long time playing with all different types, Maldon salt was the best by far. You can now get this in most supermarkets; I even use it in all of my cooking.

When I placed sea salt into lake water, the polar water molecules cluster around the salt and this gives off a charge from the electrons in the salt and with the flavours of the bait coming off at the same time it results in a good feeding frenzy for any fish in the area.

continue reading…

By Mehdi Daho;

I like to mix dumbell shape boilies with normal round boilies in my baiting spot.  I think it confuses the carp, even the most spooky specimens. This is especially true when nobody else is using the dumbells on the water.

I fished a spot very close to the margin where I baited by hand a mixture of hot hemp and partiblend with 30% of dumbells Liver B8 and 70% of 15mm Liver B8 boilies. I placed my rig with a small dumbell Liver B8 followed by a plastic yellow corn on the baiting area.

Thirty minutes later I had a run !!! After a long fight under the rod tip, I landed a superb 37lb brown mirror.

I repeated the same situation for 3 days fishing only 1h in the evening, and I managed a run each night. I really believe the shape of the bait can increase runs.

Mehdi

by Paul Cooper; 

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.

continue reading…

Next year is just around the corner, and it got me thinking New Year… new bait!  

I started my pre-baiting last month introducing small amounts of bait in the areas I will be fishing. When baiting I will usually put a couple of handfuls of bait per swim, twice a week until it’s time to fish. 

When choosing a new bait I always look for the ones that are of good quality and provide the fish with a good food source. This is essential when wanting to ensure carp get the right nutrients and continue to grow for many years angling to come. A poor food content in boiles could in turn have detrimental effects on both the carps health and angling quality of a lake in years to come. Carp are like humans in that they need an adequate supply of good nutrition, they require a whole host of nutrients. If your bait is nothing more than a 50/50 base mix then don’t expect to catch many carp on it.  

continue reading…