Quest Baits Blog

Good question that one and one which you’ll get a different answer from different people as everyone has varied views on how heavy to flavour a bait. Personally I don’t like my boilies smelling too strong but there are plenty of fish caught on real heavily flavoured baits.

Two opening sentences from my answer to the question asking how we use the Glugs.

Spencer answered straight away that he is happy using baits which have been left soaking in a Glug for 6 months. I was glad this came through as I had said everyone will have different preferences. Spencer also mentioned the Boilie Dips which are much stronger smelling and far more concentrated than the Bait Glugs. The Glug will be relatively smooth on your tongue – the dip will be too powerful. I liken it to fresh orange juice and undiluted orange squash. You could eat food with fresh orange juice poured over but not with undiluted orange squash. For hook baits only you can get away with really heavily flavoured baits as the carp never get to taste them properly.

I have caught a lot of fish in the past on hook baits soaked in neat 1000:1 flavours which goes against what I wrote about preferring subtle smelling/tasting baits but is something I still occasionally try – particularly on waters which have seen little angling pressure.

The reasons for my preference towards subtle flavoured baits are purely from conclusions drawn from the waters I currently fish. They will all produce to heavily flavoured baits and in one instance the water produces better to heavily flavoured hook baits. However and this is a big however, I have found that the average size of the fish caught on my heavily flavoured baits is much lower than that of those caught on my subtle flavoured baits (this is also a big reason why I still like to pre-soak my freebies). continue reading…

Hi there,

I’m quite new to carp fishing and was wondering when you glug your boilies do you leave them submerged in the glug for a long time or once they’ve had a coating do you put them in a pot for future use. I know the question is quite basic but like I said earlier im just starting out.

Kind regards, Simon Jones

Hi Simon,

Good question that one and one which you’ll get a different answer from different people as everyone has varied views on how heavy to flavour a bait. Personally I don’t like my boilies smelling too strong but there are plenty of fish caught on real heavily flavoured baits.

At the end of the day it very much comes down to confidence and how much the fish have been subjected to in the past. I tend to pick up a better average size of fish by keeping my baits subtle smelling rather than real strong. You need to experiment on the waters you are on though as I still fish one place which hasn’t seen a lot of pressure and those fish do seem to home in on strong flavoured baits.

The following is how I use Glugs in my own fishing.

Shelf Life Baits

• Hook Baits – I usually fill a empty pop-up tub with boilies, add a bit of Glug at a rate of 10ml (2 teaspoons) per 200ml tub (our pop-up containers) then simply leave them near the kettle or wherever I’ll be passing regular and give them a shake about each time I walk by until they have soaked the glug up and become less messy to handle. These I am quite happy to carry around in my rucksack for some time. You can add more glug at a later stage if you wish. I prefer to do this a bit at a time rather than leave them soaking in it.
• Normal Free Baits for baiting with – I don’t often glug them but if I do I simply give them a light coating then shake them around in a polythene bag until they are evenly covered. I would prefer to do this 24 hour before using them. continue reading…

By Scott Ratcliffe;

High-attract self made hook baits are so easy to make, as the colder months slowly approaches, a good bait that smells and has good food souse will differently put some good fish on the bank, here is one of my ways of using your favourite boilies to make them into a high attracter and even change the shape of them  

 Step1

Add about 250 grams of chosen boilies into a food processor  continue reading…

By Pat Gillet
1. Different size baits

A method I use quite a lot during the months of say August and September when the carp are having a good feed (especially for wary fish) is to feed with different sizes of bait. For example I will feed Quest boilies of 10, 15 and 20mm. I will then tie up a circular 6 bait pva stringer of different size baits and fish a hair with say a 15mm & 10mm bait on it which when the pva has dissolved, will sit right in the middle. The theory behind this method is that when the carp is feeding it will find it much harder to detect the weight of the hook than it would if it were just feeding on the same size baits. This method has brought me a lot of success and is the method I used to take fish to 55lb 4oz from Island Lake in France last year. continue reading…

By Roy Van Goor

Early season is often a good time for margin fishing. As the water temperature rises the fish will start to patrol in the shallower water… and often that means the margins get visited.
To trick the carp in these situations I often use a critically balanced hookbait and the best way to do this is by using a pop-up that’s presented just above the baited area. I create mine a little differently to most… instead of putting the counterweight on the hooklink I prefer to place it on the hair itself.

To do this I put a little bit of lead tight against the bait on the hair. In my experience around 0.3g of lead will balance a 15mm pop-up. continue reading…

by Carl Bullock

TIP 1 – FOAM INSERTS

Try using a small cork or foam insert in your hookbait so that it sinks slowly, then lengthen the hooklink by 3-4 inches. This allows the hookbait to fly further back into the fish’s mouth giving the hook more of a chance to catch hold. This also helps if you are having trouble losing fish through hook pulls.

An excellent method when fishing over light weed or chod, as well as tricking some of the older wiser carp.

TIP 2 – MINI STICK

Try placing a tiny stick mix over the hook to avoid tangles when using braid. Ensure that there are no large lumps like boillie chops that might mask the hook point. Not only does it have the added bonus of hiding the hook, it can also draw the fish into the hookbait too. continue reading…