Quest Baits Blog

Just spent the day at Leslie’s of Luton with Archie Braddock showing off some of our Quest Baits products as well as the re-released Archie Braddocks spice blends.

As is usual there were lots of questions and queries from the customers. I had one interesting one which I thought I would relate here.

One guy commented that he had purchased a tub of our Pineapple Crush pop-ups, had caught on them but they appeared to lose their colour quite quickly. I went on to explain that we make them this way on purpose and fortunately with having a demonstration tank full of water with us I showed him why.

Dyes are available in many forms and non-soluble dyes will remain the same colour no matter how long the baits are cast out for. Soluble dyes will start to fade. In my opinion this has two major advantages over baits containing non-soluble dye.

Most of the waters I have fished in recent years the carp respond quicker to baits which look as though they have been out in the lake for a long period. This is the reason why I usually pre-soak my feed baits before use. The dye starting to wash out of the pop-up has two very definite advantages. Firstly it emmits an attractive colour cloud around the bait (I demonstrated this in the tank) and secondly it soon looks ’safe’ and washed out. Once I showed this in the tank the customer appeared quite satisfied.

Sometimes I want a bait to remain bright in colour and in these instances I simply cut the top off my pop-up and add a cut of piece of artificial bait the same size. This gives all the advantages of a artificial bait but with the greater advantage of the attractors from a proper bait emmitting from underneath. The best of both worlds!

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

Paul Prescott wrote;

Recently came across your website and really like it and will be looking to use some of your baits this year. Can you give me some more details about your Quest Method Mix in terms of what it consists of and what it smells of. Any other tips on its use would be great too.
Cheers
Paul

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your query.  The Quest Baits Method mix is a very complex mixture full of various ingredients nuts, seeds etc and can be cut to make it go further or used neat. It binds together very well and can take up to 40% pellet when you mix it up.

Best Fishes, Shaun Harrison

by Shaun Harrison

Pellets are banned! Don’t use pellets in the winter! Pellets kill carp! Pellets seal the water’s surface and deprive the lake of oxygen!

Mmm, where do I go from here?

All four statements in the above can be classed as true. The biggest problem we have is the word “pellet“. It is so vague that the mere word has created a problem on so many waters. Pellet is simply a word describing a small parcel of food; food turned into pellet form; food which has generally been compressed under huge pressure then dried. Yes, there are pellets which can cause problems, but there are an awful lot of pellets which can benefit a water and its inhabitants by their inclusion.

Let’s run through a few different types of pellet which are commonly used and look at them in turn. continue reading…