Quest Baits Blog

This year in France we have had a really very hard winter.  For several months the temperatures were below zero with northerly winds.  We were paralyzed and most of the lakes were frozen.

What a relief it was to get out on the bank again and it was a beautiful sunny day with no wind that my first fish of the year were caught.  It was a short day session and I’d done no pre-baiting.  I used a mixture of hemp, sweetcorn and Quest Fruity Trifle boilies.  Whenever I open a packet of Fruity Trifle that sublime fruity smell reminds me of my early days in carp fishing… back to basics!

It took less than an hour for the first take coming from the boat bay exposed to the sun. The run was slow & deliberate but the fight was anything but!  What fun… the first fish of 2010 taken under a radiant sun.  He just couldn’t resist the Fruity Trifle!
See you soon,  Romu.

Just got back from a day session on a local water of mine and have managed to surprise myself by the amount of thought that was given to my baiting tactics.

I was only there for what could only be described as a few hours but I probably spent an equal amount of time deciding on and preparing the bait.

Just thought I’d mention two approaches I used, which I’m positive is nothing new to anyone but sometimes overlooked in favour of new and improved methods.

Paste is a brilliant but underused bait and when used the results can be devastating. There are loads of self pastes on the shop shelves you can buy these days but it still can be a minefield choosing the right one.

The one I go for is Quest Baits Fruity Trifle, a bait I can use all year round that doesn’t let me down even in these colder months of the year. I like to wrap 15mm boilies with paste on my hooklink alongside small paste balls mixed with the pellet in a PVA bag.

Another method I tend to find myself using whatever the season is hempseed, the old favourite for many people.

Out of personal preference I prepare my own at home before a session and like to hot things up a little by adding a few little goodies like salt and chilli. Fairly often after cooking and cooling the seeds I like to liquidise the mixture into a puree.

This produces a mixture quite irresistible for even the most cautious of carp and is quite easily spodded out to a marker, thrown out with a baiting spoon or placed accurately within the margins.

I’m sure everyone has their personal all time favourite methods both old and new.

All the Best

Samantha Collins-Ratcliffe