There are many options for accurate baiting and bait presentation. Probably one of the most neglected is wading out your baits to give you that perfect presentation. On 90% of waters this will not be possible, due to depth, silt or wading restrictions, but if it is possible then why not give it a try.
On a local lake that I fish the depths of the waters quantify the use of chest waders. With depths of around 3 to 3 ½ feet, getting in the water in chesties is not a problem.
Prior to this I would have already have done my plumbing work with a marker float to ensure that wading is possible.
Care still has to be taken as there a some large areas of deep silt and weed. I initially take out my landing net handle to use as a prod to ensure that I am not walking into a silt hole or walking off or onto a ledge..
Now there may be some of you that are horrified that that I am disturbing the carp from the margins and scattering them to the far end of the lake. Most estate lakes, as with the one that I am talking about, are used to graze cattle etc.
About 10 years ago I started fishing a local lake,..a park lake about 8 acre’s in size.At that time the stock level was massive, lots of doubles and twenties. with the odd thirty plus fish.
The biggest resident at that time weighted 34 lb…a big mirrorcarp. Everybody wanted to catch that monster.Fishing was fairly easy, days of 5 fish or more where standard.The fish loved the anglers bait and kept coming back for it. At that time I did not land the monster, but sadly lost it in front of the net twice. Last year I had caught my targetfish from another lake fairly fast. With no direct other option I decided to take a ticket for the lake I fished 10 years ago. After arriving I noticed allot of anglers, but nobody catching anything.. All the anglers complained, they did not feed..weather was wrong..etc I just started using questbaits at that particular moment, and it was a good option to test quest them on these no feeding, weathermoody fish. After the 1st session , using fruitly trifle and smokey fish I blanked.(more…)
So, how do we arrive at the final recipe the finished bait and what sort of testing do we actually do?
This is such a frequently asked question that I thought I should perhaps answer everyone.
Many of the baits in the Quest Baits range have a very long history to them – certainly a lot longer than Quest has been around. Baits like ‘Fruity Trifle’ have been part of my personal armoury since the late 80’s with just the odd tweak here and there as new ingredients have come to light which I feel are better than some of the ones I used in the original basemix form. But there are also the boilies such as Liver B8 which I have worked on since the formation of Quest Baits.
The Liver B8 was a bait I always wanted to do – total meat based with no fish. It was a case of finding the right ingredients. The actual bait had been in my head for years but it took a long while to track down the ingredients I wanted.
Everyone knows the effectiveness of liver products in baits. Carp love the taste of liver but how many of you are aware of the type of liver you are using? Does your bait have pigs liver in it, cows liver perhaps, chicken liver, lambs liver – the list goes on.