Hi, My favourite story and capture goes back to 2004.I had fished a small gravel pit the previous year without any real big captures. The lake was approx 6 acres and I was the only angler fishing it at that time. The majority of the fish that I had caught where small commons up to mid 20’s. It was early march when I wanted to try some of my new bought gear.
New rods .new pod, everything had to be tested and looked at on the bank. Because it was still very cold and early in the year I decided that I would give the particular gravelpit a go. I arrived in the early morning, just at 1st light. Everything looked dead..the reeds..the lake..all in their winter sleep.
After installing my gear I set up my new tackle I baited the rigs. 1st rod was cast to the left hand side…just in front of some dead reeds, a few freebies where scattered around it..that should do the trick. When I was preparing my 2nd rod..the 1st rod already signalled some bleeps..the hanger was moving slowly up and down.. (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.
Steve Vaughan wrote:
I have just started fishing a new water with a large head of carp to 28lb. It has seen little carppressure and hardly any boilies, however it does get fished for the large bream that live in the lake. The depth varies from 5ft to 18ft, could you give some advice as to how the bloggers would go about fishing for the carp.
Shaun Harrison replies:
Good question this one and one which could be answered in many different ways.
My approach to any new water if the waterclarity allows is to put small traps of bait in likely looking areas then keep walking around the venue until either I am lucky enough to stumble upon a few fishfeeding or until it becomes clear that the carp don’t particularly visit the margins during daylight hours.
If I’m lucky enough to find fish I can then experiment to find what sort of baits the fish prefer rather than going in with the bait I want to use.(more…)
Summer or winter, weedbeds are well worth a serious look at as being a good holding area for carp. I’ve found that clear spots in the weed are often a good area to put your hookbait - especially on a short session. I’ve fished a lot of very weedy waters, both here and on the continent, and most of the time I find takes occur during the hours of daylight from these clear spots.(more…)