Quest Baits Blog

Archie with a superb Bream

There are many good groundbait mixes on the market, but to buy a bag each time you go fishing really bumps up your costs. This easily variable mix is one I’ve used for 20 years, its very inexpensive, and easy to prepare.

There are four basic ingredients;

• white crumb
• brown crumb
• maize flour
• bran

I buy a sack of each and store it in plastic bins; it lasts forever if kept dry. If two or three of you share the cost you will each get a couple of years worth or more at a very low price. These ingredients all have a job to do, as follows.

WHITE CRUMB…
This is a binder, the more you put in the stiffer the mix will become. continue reading…

Archie & a 3lb 8oz Perch from a previous session

The Braddock’s spice range we have recently re-introduced are proving to be a great success and nothing nicer for me than to receive a report from Archie himself on an incredible catch of big perch on the Xotic Spice.

It all started after picking up a fish of 2lb 10oz while stick floating on a local stretch of river. He returned a couple of days later to tackle it properly, but still using the same 20′ rod, an 18 hook, and half of a small dendrobaena worm.

First he mixed up his favourite Choppy Mix, consisting of dead maggots, casters, and chopped worm. This was bound together with a groundbait heavily flavoured with Xotic Spice, and introduced to a metre deep near-bank swim via a bait dropper. The water temperature of just 36 degrees F, (2.3 degrees C) meant four hours of biteless trotting, but near sunset he took perch of 2lb 9oz, 3lb 2oz, 3lb 10oz, and 4lbs, in successive runs through.

A great day with a sting in the tail, as he lost the biggest perch of the session after a long battle due to that small hook pulling out of the fish. He’s going back to the swim with beefier tackle, so watch this space.

Visit the Quest site to read Shauns latest newsletter covering Braddock’s Baits launch at Leslies of Luton.

Click here to go straight there.

Keith asked;

I was very pleased to see in this weeks Carp-Talk Xtra that you have taken over Archie’ products following his retirement as my stocks of tench,roach and zander “magic” powders and liquids,previously purchased from Walkers are dwindling.

So I am taking the liberty of sending this email to ask if those products will still be available, or will you be concentrating on the carp based items only?

Please wish Archie a long and happy retirement from me as a previous customer.

Shaun replied;

Hi Keith,

Archie will be accompanying me tomorrow at Leslies of Luton where we will be showing some of the Quest gear and the new re-release of his powders so I will certainly pass your message to him.

At the moment to test the water so to speak we have only released 4 of the powders Supaspice, Megaspice, Mega Carp and Xotic Spice. If we get the response on these as we are expecting we will naturally bring extra product back out.

To be fair one of the reasons I agreed to re-release some of Archie’s range is that I very much want to develop baits for other species as well as carp – thus releasing our Barbel Chops and Chubby Chops this year. The four powders we have so far released were the four biggest sellers so before we invest really heavily into ingredient purchase (Archie’s recipes contain more ingredients than I have ever seen used before) I just need to see these start trickling out.

We try and keep the press well informed in what we are doing so any extra releases will be documented well.

Thanks for taking the time to contact us.

Very best fishes

Shaun Harrison

We are delighted to announce the re-introduction of these outstanding feed inducing powders. I sold them myself for years whilst working at Walkers of Trowell and the feedback we used to get was nothing short of amazing.

Unfortunately the bait side of things was very much a side line for Archie and when he decided to retire he stopped manufacture of his powders – much to the disappointment of many. Whilst I was at Walkers we purchased all his remaining powder blends, such was the popularity of them, but they didn’t last long!

After a chance conversation with Archie I brought up the subject of his spice blends and to cut a long story short he agreed to pass his recipe books on to us at Quest so we could once again make these very special and highly effective blends available to the angler.

So, for the first time for a few years you are once again able to enjoy the feed inducing qualities of…

• Supaspice – Roach, Perch, Tench and Chub.
• Xotic Spice – Perch, Roach, Bream and Barbel
• Mega Carp – Carp
• Mega Spicy – Barbel, Chub and Bream

Available in 100gm tubs with full instructions for just £2.99

Shaun