2024 is now underway, the fish and anglers in some cases are now waking up from the slumber. This said, the bait making and testing hasn't stopped since the cold set in last year. Not the whole team but, a small handful of us crazy cold weather fools were on the bank testing some new test baits that we will consider at this time to be fast leaking hook baits for very cold water. We had a couple of results, which was good but now they are once again on the back burner until the end of the year when the cold sets in so we can test them again in their new form - they would break down way too fast for warm water, a factor they are not intended for specifically. I myself am glad, as they absolutely stank to hi-hell during the rolling process, bringing me to a mouth watering place I'd only rather go after a few too many beers - nuff said really on that matter.
Bait wise for 2024 - I've done some re - shuffling. I have officially retired the Kryllworm boilie. A good bit of bait for some, but, from my own stand point, there's a lot of Krill based baits out there by the big bait companies to keep the average angler happy that I simply cant compete with, especially with the amount of choice they are presenting year in year out. Plus I never felt the actual bait, despite its ingredients being of a good quality, it never reached its potential. We will however be replacing them with something totally different - a fruity flavour. We have already begun small tests with the pop ups with results so a good sign. Watch this space
So to our other boilie, the Live - X, this will now have its own matching pop up, which is great - as its taken nearly 4 years on and off to get it right - such has its complexity been in getting it to 'match' the boilie. I can only thank Jon Beazley really for his efforts and feedback, right down to the colour in getting this sucker to work. He had successful winter on them, along with Chris Beagley, so we know they will work all year round now, and will be released by the summer once we get all the media done for them: sticker designs for the labels and promo pics, this stuff takes time but its great to finally let people have them.
Squid InQ - The bottom baits will be released during April 2024 - FINALLY!!! I was hoping to have them for March but a few things got in the way of my efforts so they are delayed by a month - not long to go though! They will be worth the wait.
Some of you who frequent the site may have noticed a certain set of hookbaits in the bait section called Spotlight Specials, these are the brain child from ND tackle Angler, Mark Foster. I've been lucky to have known Mark for sometime now in between his angling exploits and his Spotlight Series on You tube - he is a busy guy but in among all the chaos of his angling, he approached us at incQbait to make his hookbaits. The Spotlight Specials: THE SPICE. Mark had something fishy in mind for these and we batted a few things around for a bit on and off the bank while in discussion and then set about making a first official batch in the workshop one very cold Sunday morning in February 2023. Mark had already done some tests with great results in and among anglers he knew but the pair of us still tweaked it into something more than it was. It really is a great hookbait and has saved many a blank for people and even served humble pie to a couple of hard syndicate waters. So if this floats your boat in amongst the incQbait baits grab yourself some to try.
So with all this said and dusted, I do want to point out we get asked a lot of questions in regard to the site, which bait flavours and types of bait, bait styles, costs and so on so I'll do my damnedest here to clear them up.
I'll be shooting straight from the hip with my answers here:
Will we do wafters? In a nutshell, no. Call us ignorant or what ever, but its just pointless for us to introduce yet another one, especially in the world of angling on how you can turn a bottom bait into a wafter or weigh down a pop up - theres a lot of options readily available.
Do you do discount on bulk orders? Sorry, no. Discount is only deemed viable when you order 10kg and above - you will get them posted free.
Why does your postage cost this much? Thats one for the post office and parcel force to answer, not us. We dont make the rules. However, as an example if you buy 4 pots of pop ups from us the price to post it is the same as if you bought one pot. The post office use parcel sizes and weight to decipher what to charge. Our pop ups come to you in a small protective box that will hold between 6 -8 pots. Boilies are a different animal, bigger packaging more weight. FYI, some places add to the postage to make money - we do not.
Why have your prices increased this year? That, frankly is business. Thats how it works. If you are not aware, the price of ingredients, packaging and so on has increased, even label printing, since BREXIT, COVID and now the war in the east, everything has had a knock on effect. Some ingredients have disappeared altogether in all this mess, so alternatives need to be found at 'home'. Overall, if we dont follow suit we wont have a business to make bait. And thats not an option for us. We love what we do.
What other flavours do you do? Well, only the ones on the website, if its not there we dont do it. Only team testers will be aware of new baits as we move forward to create and/or replace previous baits. We try to keep all our flavours and baits original using our knowledge of well known ingredients of what can possibly catch you a carp. We are not influenced by what is deemed a 'fashionable' bait outside in the bait world. The point is, if you use what everyone else uses, dont expect different results. A big factor for us as well is having a quality of baits - we can concentrate on maintaining a good product and not letting it get watered down. Less is more overall.
Card payment isnt working, I dont like paypal. To clear this one up, we were aware with various factors of card payment and security issues in some cases, this led us to use the paypal option. Paypal does allows you to use a card even without a paypal account. However this issue of card vs paypal for some is now fixed. The back end of the coding on the site is solid. We have tested several times and orders have also come through perfectly as well in between. At the end of the day we are aware we may have lost customers, but the idea was online safety for EVERYONE. Things should now be as good as they can be.
How can I join your bait team? Well, at the moment there are no spaces for another person, everyone in the team has a place right now and we still have new team members who joined toward the end of last year, whom, we are itching to see what they can do with the bait and give feedback to help it improve. Until anyone moves on or otherwise, we aren't taking anymore on for the time being I'm afraid. We will put an ad out if we need people in due course,. We sincerely appreciate the interest.
That's all for now folks - have an awsome 2024 on the bank
Jay (incQbait Gaffer)