Quest Baits Blog

As the weather is still up and down with temperature going below zero on a regular basis here’s a tip I thought you might find useful.

To stop my line freezing in the rod rings I’ve been rubbing glycerine on them.

A bit about Glycerine;

Glycerine can be brought from any chemist or Tesco’s in the baking department.  In the real world it’s used in many ways… baking, cooking, making soap and of course, bait making.

It’s a neutral, sweet-tasting, colourless, thick liquid which has a high boiling point.  It can be dissolved into water or alcohol, but not oils.  On the other hand, many things will dissolve into glycerine easier than they do into water or alcohol.

Anyhow… that’s the real world… it’s best use is stopping your line freezing up!  Give it a go!

Regards, Scott

By Jamie Simpson

1) Observation is vital, take advantage of trees and high banks to get a good view point.

 2) If you are heading to a new lake for the first time and don’t know what to expect, do as much groundwork as possible. For example Carp Talk, Carpworld, Crafty Carper, forums and carp meetings are a great source of information. Position yourself on a peg that gives you a view of as much of the lake as possible. Watch what others are doing and you can build up a picture of how to approach the venue. Don’t be afraid to ask the regulars, but don’t be pushy either. On 99% of lakes you will find people more than willing to help once you get to know them.

3) Whilst the carp are now becoming far more active, they will not be in full gorging mode just yet so go steady with the bait and gradually increase the amounts depending on results.

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4) Don’t be afraid to be different and try zig rigs, or a particle approach etc. You will often find that on most venues people will say that such and such doesn’t work on here. The truth is often that no one has even tried it or they have done at the wrong time or in the wrong place. The best way is often to try it for yourself. I know this seems to slightly contradict tip No. 2 but you will only do as well as others if you do what they do all the time.

5) PASTE! I cannot emphasise enough how many fish I have caught that I believe was largely down to its use. Here are a few advantages; instant attraction, different shape to that of a round ball which spells danger, hook point protection. It will break down over a period of hours anyway… so there’s really nothing to lose anyway.

6) Carry a bag of floaters just in case. I have had a couple of occasions late March and April where they have been ready for the odd floater and if you can be one of the first to use them during the year the chances are you will catch them out before they become wary of them again.

By Scott Ratcliffe

I started playing around with different ways of camouflaging my end tackle to suit the lake bed I’m fishing.  I’ve started fishing a large 70 acre gravel pit in the south west which holds a small amount of large carp that have proved themselves to be hard to catch, so I’ve been taking my end tackle to the next stage to see if I can blend it all in to match the lake bed.

After playing around with making my own leads and camouflaging them I started to play with a lead clip, then the rubber and the rig tubing. All you need is a blow torch and some powdered coating which will match your lake bed.

continue reading…

Just the conditions for false bleeps!

by Shaun Harrision
Following on from my previous blog regarding stopping the bite alarms constantly bleeping in a big wind I would like to share another little method I have developed since I wrote the last bit.

This has all come about since joining a large deep clay pit in Cambridgeshire. I have never fished anywhere before that gets so windy so often. It’s as though it has its own mini climate. The drive to the pit will often see barely a rustle in the trees but once there white caps can often be seen with huge waves breaking over the bank on the prevailing wind. continue reading…

by Shaun Harrison

Just spent a week-end in real heavy winds. the Cambridgeshire lake I am fishing seems to always have a gale blowing across it. I guess because of the size of the place 1 3/4 mile around the bank then the wind builds up more momentum across it than it would appear to do on smaller sheltered lakes. Also Cambridgeshire isn’t the sort of place you go off on a hill walking or mountaineering holiday – it is pretty flat. continue reading…

by Pat Gillett;

One of the things that I have noticed in carp fishing during the last few years is the increasing amount of gear that carp anglers seem to be taking with them. In fact it seems that some anglers feel almost naked if they haven’t got at least a barrow load of tackle. I can appreciate the need for all this gear if you are going for a three or four day session especially at this time of year, but I am seeing guys with barrow loads of gear in the summer and they are only stopping for a day or a single night. I am sure that taking too much gear costs anglers a number of fish as it makes them very reticent to up sticks and move swims even when they can see fish on other parts of the lake.

When going for a day session my gear is cut to the bare minimum and I can fit it all into a 45-litre rucksack and small bait bucket (which will include a few Quest Baits boilies, matching paste & pop-ups, a few pellets & a few floaters). Add a lightweight 3-rod quiver, lightweight chair and an unhooking mat and that should be all you need. With this amount of tackle you can have your rods reeled in and be moving on to fish in another part of the lake within 5 minutes. continue reading…