Quest Baits Blog

I wanted to share little tactic that I use a lot during the colder winter months. I like to use PVA in most of my fishing situations.

Of course most anglers know that the dissolve rate of PVA goes a lot slower in the cold water temperatures during the Winter months, some types of PVA don’t in fact dissolve at all! Looks a bit strange when you reel in and see the stringer is still there… undissolved.

Sound familiar??

What do I do to be sure that its gone within a few seconds after casting out my bait and stringer ?

There are several types of PVA on the market –  bags, strings & funnel web.

But what I wanted to talk about are the stringer type of PVA.

What I tend to do is unravel the PVA string, most of the stringer materials are 3 separate thinner strands. continue reading…

Here is a short Winter Carp Fishing video clip, shot in December that shows that the extra effort of moving swims can really pay off. It all goes to prove that five minutes in the right place, especially at this time of the year is better than a day in the wrong spot. The carp are there and they will feed in short spells.

Paste – A Winter’s Edge

By Jamie Simpson;

Catching carp in the winter certainly isn’t easy, but you can put things in your favour with a little thought.

Over the last couple of years I have used more and more paste during the winter months. The reason for this is quite simple really. With colder water temperatures I don’t want the attractors of my bait to be locked in. Even in the coldest of conditions the paste will breakdown, thus giving off a trail of attraction. As you generally won’t be putting free bait into the swim, the draw is entirely from the scent trail given off by the paste.

I generally fish a Rahja Spice hard hookbait with Rahja paste wrapped around it. To add to this I will often use a small bag of either 10mm (3 or 4) baits or crushed 15mm baits (2off). This gives the fish a mouth full of bait and one that they often find hard to resist.

On several occasions I have managed to put fish on the bank whilst everyone else seems to be finding it difficult. continue reading…

Have you ever caught a carp from under the ice, by design? Shaun Harrison certainly has!

by Shaun Harrison

I had invited Elie Godsi along to ‘The Inner Sanctum’ for the afternoon to fish as my guest. After the long walk to the pool, we were both disappointed to find it frozen over apart from a small bay in the northwest corner. I decided to set a rod up and give it a couple of hours.

I was able to drop the rig eight feet out into the lake and onto a ledge in around three feet of water. A bright red, critically-balanced whisky boilie was delivered to the lake bed and left in isolation under the ice. J

ust an hour later I was playing a carp from under the ice. The size of fish in these conditions is pretty much immaterial but for what it’s worth it turned out to be a mid-double.

This fish definitely gave me a much bigger sense of achievement than a lot of the larger carp I have caught over the years, particularly as it came from under the ice. continue reading…