Quest Baits Blog

With one thing and another I have not been able to get out as much as I would have liked so far this season, as I write this (14/7/10) I have only managed four short afternoon / evening trips to the River Dove.

The first two trips were to a stretch of the river I had never fished before. The first afternoon I fished an absolutely classic looking swim with two far bank bushes which were on the outside of a bend (meaning that the main area of flow would be pushing underneath these bushes, giving more oxygen in the water in that area

11lb 3oz – a good first trip

and also pushing any food items along with it), this was also the deepest area of the swim. We started fishing at about 4.30pm on what was a really hot day with my mate fishing about 300 yards below me.

At around 6pm the rod fished to the upstream bush gave a ‘delicate’ 3 feet twitch! , and I was attached to my first barbel of the new season. It turned out to be a nicely conditioned fish of 11lb 3oz. As I was just about to weigh my fish, my mobile rang with my mate informing me that he had just caught a barbel of 11lb 10oz. Two 11’s at exactly the same time, can’t be bad! This proved to be a very short feeding spell has the only other bite either of us had came from a very spawned out chub of 5lb 2oz that I had at about 8pm. We packed up at 11pm. All in all, a good first trip.

Next trip was a total blank. I fished another swim on the same stretch without any bites or fish movement whatsoever. My mate also blanked.

The third and fourth trips were to a stretch about a mile downstream. The third trip was again uneventful, but the fourth trip produced a really long hard fighting barbel of 11lb 12oz. This fish snagged me up solid under a tree for several minutes, but after trying various things (slack line worked) she eventually came out and then proceeded to fight like a demon all the way to the net. This is where it is imperative to use a line with a good abrasion resistance and once again the Pro-Tough had performed well. Just to prove how short the feeding

11lb 12oz – ‘fought like a demon’

spells have become, just as I was weighing my fish the mobile rang again with my mate informing me he was just weighing a 11lb 6oz barbel. These fish were both caught at about 10.50pm shortly before packing up.

The fish have now reverted to type (on a low crystal clear river) with little being caught before dusk. Therefore you need to keep any swim disturbance to a minimum from say 9pm onwards so that you maximise your chances of a bite during what can be a very short feeding spell.

The fish that I have caught have fallen to a feeder fished pellet, with the pellet wrapped in either Quest barbel chop paste or Special Crab paste. The feeder being filled with Quest Baits mini mixed pellets.

The main thing I have noticed different about the river this year is the vast amount of streamer weed that is in the water. It is the most I have ever seen, and from what I have been told the Upper Trent is exactly the same. I would have thought that this would have been exactly the opposite after such a long hard winter. Anyone got any theories on this one?

So there we are, 4 short sessions, not many fish caught, but those that were caught were of a good average. That’s really what my fishing is all about these days, ‘Quality over quantity every time’. Although I have no interest in chasing big ‘named’ fish, as long as I am catching good sized fish in fairly quiet surroundings then I am more than happy.

Cheers,
Pat Gillett

I decided to put this piece together after reading the blog piece where Graham was catching chub on the new ‘chubby chops’ but was also missing plenty of bites. Graham was fishing the baits on a short hair.

One of many winter doubles that has fell to the boilie / bait band combination

The situation above closely mirrors that of one that I found myself in many winters ago whilst fishing on the Lower Severn below Worcester. I was fishing trimmed down boilies on a short hair and was getting lots of sharp pulls on the rod tip but only caught one barbel in the 8 hour session.

Now obviously there were plenty of barbel in the swim but the rig I was using wasn’t effective enough to catch them. The water was cold (around 6ºc) and because of this I was sure the barbel were not feeding properly but were merely picking the bait up in their lips without getting pricked by the hook (because of the hair being used).

Now I had caught a lot of good barbel through the Autumn on banded pellets.  This got me thinking of using the bands for the boilies as well, so that the bait was right next to the hook. This would mean that hopefully the barbel would not be able to mouth the bait without getting pricked by the hook. continue reading…

Pat Gillett explains why you’ll catch more Barbel if you listen to the information your rod tops are giving you;

A nice Upper Trent double caught after making a change

With more and more carp anglers trying their hand at barbel fishing, I see lots of anglers fishing behind 2 rods with bite alarms, as they would do in carp fishing, and paying more or less no attention at all to watching the rods.

This is all well and good but by doing this you really are missing out on a lot of vital information that your rod tops are telling you. The alarms will only really tell you when a fish has taken line off the spool, i.e. when they have hooked themselves. Now by carefully watching the rod tops you can tell so many more things;

1. Slow bend rounds…. maybe lots of weed gathering on line…do I need to increase my hook length? continue reading…

One of 3 doubles in an afternoon when we got the timing right !

Through one thing and another I have not been able to get out fishing much lately and so last weeks trip to the Warwickshire Avon was my first session for nearly three weeks.

The river was about a foot above normal level and carrying a nice brown tinge to it. My only concern was that we may be a day late, has the river had dropped at least 2 ½ feet from the previous day and there would be a good chance that the barbel had fed hard with the extra water on. This proved to be the case, as myself and my good mate Geoff struggled for one barbel each.

24.10.09

A recent session really brought home to me how much luck can play in the capture of a good fish. We all like to think that all the fish we catch are down to things like angling ability and top notch baits etc, but sometimes pure luck can play a large part in success.

My latest bit of good luck came on my first visit of the season to the Lower Severn. I was fishing has a guest on a Midlands region Barbel Catchers Club ‘fish in’, on a stretch of the river which I had never even seen before, let alone fished, so it would be a case of hoping for the best and waiting to see what, if anything came along.

We met up at about 12.30pm and were greeted with leaden skies and persistent rain. The river itself was really low with very little colour (as are all of the rivers at the moment), so it would probably be a ‘scratching’ type day. The only plus was that at least the river was flowing, as at times of very low water the Lower Severn can sometimes appear as still as a lake. continue reading…