Quest Baits Blog

By Ron Key
When winter arrives and the carp start to feed less frequently, and perhaps only feed for very short periods, I want to create a situation where my bait will deliver maximum attraction without fear of overfeeding the carp.

At times like these I like to crumb or chop my boilies because once the boilie skin has been broken it allows the the flavours and attractors to be quickly released. My preferred method of delivery is 5 or 6 crumbed fruity or spicy boilies in small PVA mesh tubing ball attached to the hook. When distance is a major requirement small solid PVA bags are used, packing the crumbed boilie around the lead, folding in and sticking the corners of the bag to create a more aerodynamic shape. continue reading…

By Scott Ratcliffe;

During the colder months in particular, I find that when pasting up a 15mm hookbait with a similar high attract paste (Quest Fruity Trifle is my favourite in the winter) I achieve better results than when not doing so.

Paste can sometimes be an overlooked method but it really is worth considering. It gives high attraction in colder waters and the attention of little nuisance fish, who may nibble away at it, help draw in the carp in my opinion.

I don’t specifically choose my paste with regards to the weather, but I do tend to use ones that I am confident with and have, over previous years, had results with.

Well France like the UK has been in the grips of a cold and icy Winter since virtually the turn of the year. Many stillwaters have been frozen on and off and even on the occasions when they are clear the air temperatures and general precipitation, added to the liberal sprinkling of snow over northern Europe, have meant that all but the very brave have stayed at home.

We received an e-mail from French field tester Bruno Medou, who has turned his attentions to the rivers.

This is in fact a great way to bag the odd bonus winter fish. The river carp unlike their lake bound brethren have little choice but to remain active and thus feed during the colder months.

By selecting backwaters, slacker stretches and perhaps even flooded zones you can often find feeding carp. If the fish are feeding they are catchable.

Most of his sessions have been simple over nighters, but the fish have been cooperative in conditions where you wouldn’t even be able to cast a line in a lake.

The advantage also of the colder dryer weather is that so far few of the northern French rivers have seen any significant flood water. Levels have risen and fallen fairly quickly.

So if your local lake is frozen over, don’t give up – try the river instead!

When winter pays a visit to the lake I’m fishing, the water almost overnight becomes as clear as glass making me pay some thought to the line on my spools. 

When choosing line I soon came to realise you have to have a good look around as there are so many to choose from.   

I’ve been using Xline for some time now and I wanted a change so I decided to look at red mist line from TF Gear. 

After a fair amount of research on the product and discovering that red is the first tone to disappear in the colour spectrum, making red mist almost invisible in water, I was more interested in giving it a chance and ordered my sample.  

When it turned up I was very impressed, a nice smooth silky feel to the line and a good knot hold I soon poured hot water into a bucket and dropped the spool of line in there for 10 minutes, getting rid of any memory in the line.  

 Red may not be the first of choices for a ‘serious’ carp angler and definitely goes against the norm but slowly it is tempting more and more of us into giving it a chance and why not? 

After being convinced to put my waders on and half freeze to death, during a recent winter session, and stand in the lake for that prize picture I was intrigued as to what kind of temperature the water itself was.

This gave me the idea of pinching the ray temp gun out of my husband’s kitchen.  It has a built in laser and has proven to be extremely accurate in the lake each time I go fishing and more importantly each time I have landed a fish.

This is beginning to help me build up a good picture of the year to come and hopefully in time to come help determine the ideal water temperature.

I’m sure each lake has its own characteristics and differing reactions to differing water temperatures but never the less spending short periods of time researching a water could pay off greatly in the long run.  

Best wishes, Samantha

Minus 5 and still out there!

It’s been a long time since we had a cold spell with prolonged sub zero temperatures like we had earlier this year. Apparently the start of December 2008 was the coldest since 1970. The older I get the more I feel the cold, especially in my fingers and toes and unlike in the love song, it isn’t pleasant at all. In fact it’s miserable. Fishing in these conditions can be demanding and I know that if I don’t keep warm I won’t enjoy being ‘out there’ and more importantly, I won’t fish well. So here are some tips about staying warm this winter. 

Clothing: with the development of modern fabrics there is no excuse for not keeping your core temperature up. It is vital to use a layering system of clothes right across your whole body. The base layer should be skin tight and made of a non absorbent material which wicks sweat away from your body.  Any dampness in any part of your clothes will lose heat and feel much colder. The next layer should be warm and also non-absorbent – most modern fleeces will do. The top or outer layer should be breathable and waterproof. As a top layer I love my Sundridge Igloo Suit (Mark 2) made up of a bib and brace and a jacket. I have yet to fish anywhere where, used in a correct layering system, this wasn’t plenty warm enough. It’s not cheap but you get what you pay for.

Remember to put these layers on as you need them. A good layering system will keep you dry even if you get sweaty carting your gear round to your chosen swim, but there’s no point having more layers on than you need. Even a good wicking system has its limits though so I always take a change of base layers and a spare pair of warm socks (and snow boot liners if I’m using them) so that if they get too damp then I can put a dry one on while the other one dries out.

Hand and foot warmers: I love these little packets of heat and would be lost without them. If you haven’t used them before then you are seriously missing out. Simply open the packet, expose to the air and the chemicals packed inside the sealed bags start to warm up. I keep one hand warmer in one pocket and swap it from side to side and from hand to hand. The foot warmers come in pairs and you simply stick them to your socks under your toes and put your boots back on. Both the hand and foot warmers take the edge off really cold days. They only cost about a quid and each one will last several hours.

Bivvy heater: this year I decided to buy a little portable bivvy heater. Having shopped around I found this Sunngas Cartridge heater for £8 on line including postage! It works off the same propane/butane gas canisters I use for my cooking. The tight flame in the middle has a metal guard around it and it’s very stable. But as it’s a flame system USE IT CAREFULLY! If it toppled over it could melt your groundsheet or worse so I put mine on a low metal bivvy table. It only takes a few minutes to warm a bivvy up with the door down; I put my heater on for a while before I go to bed and turn it off before I climb into my bag. Luxury! On really cold days I might put the door down for a bit and get really warm.

Hot water bottle: I simply don’t know why more anglers don’t take one of these fishing with them. Think about it – we go fishing next to thousands of gallons of water! I have a large spare camping kettle which I use to boil lake water with. The piping hot water bottle goes into my sleeping bag ten minutes before I do. There’s not many better feelings while fishing on a cold winter night than climbing into a warm sleeping bag.

So there you have it – just a few tips and some of the things I do to take the edge of those cold winter days and nights. Go out there, stay warm and enjoy!

Wishing you a fish filled 2009. May all your bites be one toners!

Merry Xmas to one and all.

Elie Godsi

The location of carp is not such an easy task when we move into the colder months. My time on the bank tends to be shorter, fishing time is at a premium with the shorter days, and time for fish spotting is limited.

Rolling and leaping carp are rare, as are the tell tale feeding bubbles so often seen when the fish are more active. They are less likely to be actively moving around the lake seeking food, so one answer is to take it to them.

When I’m winter fishing at least one of my rods will be roaming. Every half to one hour I will recast to a different area of the swim.

I like PVA mesh tube as it breaks down very quickly and releases the bait. Attaching a small bag of crumbed boile or Quest Maximum Action Pellets to the hook increases the attraction without feeding the carp too much.

This will often stimulate a feeding response and put that bonus winter carp on the bank.

By Ron Key

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