New beginings.....

In house quality control measures

Hi guys...

I thought I'd piece together a little blog entry about what's currently going on with the business and it's former partnership. As many of you will know Ian and myself decided to go our separate ways around 2-3 weeks ago now. Things had been getting complicated with us being so far apart from each other. One living in Wales and the other in West London. This meant that at times it was difficult to speak to each other regarding products and orders etc as Ian works long hours as a painter and decorator.

As it stood Ian was dealing with the majority of tackle orders and I of course did all the bait rolling. I wanted to continue with the bait rolling aspect as it's my forte and I really wanted to concentrate on new baits, flavours and ingredients. With the added pressures of splicing lead core, making cog leads and other general duties, it was leading me to have less time to concentrate on the bait.

Hand rolled quality ensured!

It was at this point we both agreed it may be better to split and do our own thing. I now have much more time to put into the bait aspect, webs work and of course FB and customer relations. Ian and I met amicably half way down the M4 to exchange stock and he has taken over the tackle that CBS held and myself all the baits.

As many of you will be aware, I roll all the bait by hand on tables and pride myself on making some of the finest base mixes available.

More time to spend in development

I hate using filler ingredients and I strive to insure the bait is fresh, palatable, stimulating and of course a reasonable price. That being said I cannot roll bait of the highest quality for pittance, so if it's cheap quality bait your after, then have a hunt around for others who out-source their rolling to other companies maybe as they can roll cheap ingredients in bulk on machines.

The only down side to these companies being that due to an outsider rolling for them, they cannot check the ingredients being put into the baits.....Something I personally keep track of due to obviously rolling it myself.  I will be updating all the product range over the coming weeks, adding new products, updated quality photographs, FB and web page updates, graphics etc etc. It all takes time so please bare with me.

New company and great things to come!

I have reverted to an old name I used to use with my blog for the business's future as I felt that using CBS only caused confusion about who was running what? Some customers have fled the roost and gone elsewhere since the change over has occurred and in all honesty I totally understand and wish you all luck with your angling. To those who have stayed loyal to me and the company I will endeavor to cater for your requirements and look after you as best I possibly can.

Thanks for your continued support through 2013/14 everyone!

Sometimes things go wrong like a few weeks ago when our courier network let us down with 2 orders but this was all sorted out amicably and fairly swiftly. Hopefully not something that will happen again soon. If you notice a problem with an order or you need a special requirement then please call or email me and I'll try to sort the issue asap for you.

As of 20th of August 2014 CBS Carp Bait Specialists is no longer trading and I am in the process of developing the new business in the name of Nuts about Carp. It will take a little while to divert webs traffic and do the paper work involved with name changes etc etc, so please stick with me and I look forward to continuing to serve you guys with top notch fish catching bait! I hope that the above has done something to clear up any misconceptions some may have and that you understand why whats happened has.....

Kindest regards and best wishes
Keith Supple
Director

At last a break!

First of the 2014 season for Joel! Well done mate!

Sunday came around quickly and another river session beckoned me to the River Wye in Herefordshire. I met up with Joel Biddle and his friend Rhys who made the drive down from Shrewsbury to fish for the day and have a good social.

The beat we fished was a new section for all of us and having never seen the place before we were all unsure what to expect on arrival. After a little mess up with the directions and getting a little lost, we finally met up for a wander along the mile long beat.

It was fairly overgrown and there were only a handful of swims in which to pitch up and fish from. Joel and Rhys decided to fish together as it had been a good 12 months since they had last fished together.....they set up on the top of the beat and I opted to fish at the other end in the slightly deeper, slower water.

Joel text me around 9.30am to say he had caught the first of the day at around 7lbs. I had just landed the first chub of the day at 4lbs....things were looking much better for the day! The river had a good few inches extra water and was fining down nicely with some colour in it. My next cast resulted in another chub around 4lb 3oz. This was looking great!

The lads struggled upstream but I was having a good few chub from the 'Rope Swim'. By mid afternoon I was on 8 chub and had lost 2 nice barbel to underwater hazards. I think they were large sharp boulders because the fish seemed to know exactly where to go! Every one I hooked headed straight towards the dreaded snag!

Joel's account for the 2014 season was finally open!!!

I opted to move up 3 swims and try on the back edge of a wide corner swim. which was on the below side of some rapids which afforded some extra oxygen to the river. I plumbed around and found 6ft 6inches at around 3 rod lengths. This was liberally baited by dropper and pellets and left to develop for 45 minutes. I went round to see the lads who had moved a few times and were just an eel up from the earlier barbel Joel had managed.

At last a barbel to break the monotony! 8lb 9oz of pure gold....lush

I went back after a short while to try my newly baited spot. The lads moved into the rope swim I'd been in earlier and were instantly into a small barbel of 6lbs.

A few minutes later I was just starting to nod off in the chair with my finger hooked over the line to feel for nibbles, when all of a sudden the line ripped from my finger and a good fish plowed off down stream. A couple of dicey minutes ensued and after a game of wits I sunk the net under a stunning long beast!

Rhys got in on the action too!

I called Joel up and he came up to do the pics. On the scales she went 8lb 9oz. Well chuffed as it seems like my barbel fishing had taken a turn for the worst!

Joel then had his third of the day and almost straight after Rhys finally nabbed a nice 6 pounder to end the days fishing. Tough conditions yet again but at least we managed a couple of Barbel!

Nothing's in the diary now fishing wise for a bit so I'm not 100% sure what I'll be doing next or where??? Who knows.....

Tough times

Gorgeous but devoid of fish???

The last few weeks of river fishing has been rather quiet by all accounts for me personally, with just a handful of fish finding the bank.

I've put this down to a couple of factors which include low water conditions and bright sunlit days and low oxygen levels. All this or I've just completely lost the ability to catch fish?? Another possibility!

This week has done little to bolster my ailing confidence and a trip out to a day ticket stretch of the Wye with friends Liam and Bob left me feeling worse than ever come Thursday evening....We met up at early doors Thursday and with it being Liam's first ever trip up the Wye, we were hoping like crazy that he'd bag his first barbel!

The swims looked pristine and the 3 of us set up in close proximity in an attempt to focus the feeding area in a localized area we could all grab one or two out of.

Well at least Liam caught something!!! lol

This proved to be a bit of a waste of time as nothing happened for the first few hours at all. In fact this was the way most of the day turned out! We moved swims to a spot further upstream around 1pm and the faster water there provided Liam with the first bit of action of the day. A nice little chub finding the net. Bob also managed 1 quickly after too. I on the other hand sat and sat and sat! I just couldn't grab a fish at all.

After 2 lost barbel due to hooks pulling out which baffled us??? we chose to move back to the first peg again for the evening and the slower but deeper water. Again we sat for a few hours and the rain kept falling out of the sky! The river rose a good 4-5 inches in the day and I think this probably didn't help matters very much.

Just as I was starting to feel like it was going to be a blow out blank for me, I finally got a strike-able bite that resulted in a chub of around 4lbs....At least I hadn't blanked. The day was great fun and thank god we had lots of giggles and banter as the fishing was truly awful!  

Holiday fun!

Awesome prawns!

With the kids away for a few days at their grandparents, it left Marianne and I some quality time together for the first time in the best part of 15 years! Having no family members living within 150 miles makes baby sitting a chore at the best of times! We had a few odd days of being lazy and around work and other stuff we thought that we'd grab a few hours float fishing our local club lake.

Now, Marianne hasn't actually properly fished for at least 12 years and I must admit that I thought she may struggle a little at getting back into the swing of things....How wrong could I have been? I set her up with her 13ft float rod, .17 main line and a size 12 hook to 0.15 hook link. She chose the bait and went for a prawn!

well done Marianne!

I set up next to her on the feeder and had a few chucks out to the island with a CBS Micro tutti boilie on a size 12. Things started very well for both of us and Marianne was instantly catching some nice roach and bream. I started to find a few carp straight off.....Most were around 6 to 8lbs in weight and put up a cracking scrap on the light feeder kit.

Mariannes float swim was alive with fish. Every chuck in resulted in shoals of rudd and roach clustering on the surface and smashing anything she threw at them! It was a delight to watch. Eventually the light started to fail and we put on a night light each on our float rods. I had one last cast on the feeder which resulted in the biggest fish of the day at around 14 or 15lbs.

The float gear was set up on my side of the swim and the pair of us started to fish with corn and prawn alternately. Marianne was almost straight away into her first decent carp of the day and ended up with a nce common around 6 pounds for her efforts.

Even the old git managed one!

Continued regular feeding kept the fish in the swim and it wasn't very long before she was into yet another fine common! This kept going on for about the next hour and a half with Marianne totally out fishing me with her float tactics! She had 6 lovely carp to around 8lbs on her tactics and I have to say that despite the lack of strength she had in her arm for playing the fish, she managed very well to catch so many lovely fish on her first outing in a millennia!

I'm off out on Thursday this week for a day on the very slow Wye with Bob and Liam. Looking forward to trying a new venue and hoping the river has a little bit more water in it at last! Then Sunday is another day session with Joel and Reese at yet another new section! All go for me this week!

Smashing stuff! x

Some of you will notice that the tackle has been removed from the CBS web page and FB page. This is due to myself and Ian deciding to do thinks separately from each other. Before you all ask....no, we have not fallen out what so ever. We're good pals and will always remain that way. But the business needed a slight change and both of us were feeling very tired out from all the ordering etc. Ian has taken on the tackle side of things and will be doing this off his own back under the CBS Tackle banner. I will be continuing with CBS Carp Bait Specialists LTD on my own for the moment as Director and I will be concentrating solely on the bait side of things. This is more my cup of tea and in all honesty this gives us both the time to now concentrate more on our aspects of the game.

I have a new bait that we are going to be field testing over the coming months which I am very excited about! I'm currently still looking for more testers to help with this. If you think your up to the job then give me a shout on our face book page or send me an email at cbs-sales@mail.com.

Tight lines all and see you soon x

Mathews PB!

Mathews first of the day!

Sunday loomed and the kit was loaded in the car ready for another early start on the wonderful Wye. This session was to be on the Wye and Usk Foundation section at Sugwas Court. I've fished Sugwas before in October of 2013 and its a pretty little stretch of the river.

My partner in crime for the day and having his first session out on the Wye and first barbel session for over 20 years was to be Mathew O'neill. Mathew is an accomplished angler but has never targeted large river fish before.

He's caught barbel and chub to about 4lbs in the past by fishing for them on the River Trent many years ago with stick float techniques. The methods we were to be employing this time round would be different to any thing he had done before.

Just call me Mr Chub!

Things started well...I put Mat in the going swim and within minutes he had a nice chub on the bank of about 3lbs. This turned out to be a bad omen as the rest of the day until 6pm passed by without either of us having a bite worth striking at! The water was clear, low and weed rafts continually drifted into the swims, making fishing out further than 15 yards impossible.

At around 6.15pm Mathew had his first proper take of the day and landed a stunning barbel of just over 5lbs. He was ecstatic to say the least!

Within a few minutes I eventually caught my first fish of the day....a chub around 2lbs. This was followed up over a two hour period by a further 9 chub for my rod in 4 different swims! I just couldn't get the barbel into my swims. They were all sat under the tree roots in Mathews swim.

8lb 10oz PB for Mathew!

Mat's next fish was a real warrior and almost took his arm off on the take! 8lb 10oz of Wye warrior gold found the net and I can't remember the last time I had seen someone so excited by a fish! It was truly great to see his pleasure at catching the stunning gold bar.

Mat caught 2 more chub and finally another lovely barbel of 7lb 5oz! After such a torrid day of very little action, Mathew managed to make it into a very memorable one! Well done mate!