Keith Sykes
I’ve been fishing in excess of sixty five years, and have been fortunate enough to travel the world in pursuit of many species, but in truth my love is still for the UK and quiet secluded lakes or streams and rivers. I have always been fascinated with feeding in fish, how and why they feed, and of course what we need to do to make them feed aggressively.
I started my old company Cotswold Baits in 1983, and looking back we were the first company to supply very specialised bait additives, such as carp specific enzyme systems, vitamin blends and of course amino acids, to name but a few.
I have since then worked in a consultancy capacity to several of the larger well known bait companies, developing everything from carp baits to species specific ground baits used by world class match anglers.
Besides a fascination with carp, I also spent several years in search of large eels, compiling a book about them when I was a member of the National Anguilla Club. However, my passion and thirst for carp baits remains to this day, and I have been fortunate to share this journey with many respected anglers, such as the late Rod Hutchinson, Gary Bayes and Jack Hilton to name a few. In fact I vividly recall the first carp angler I ever met, the lovely Roger Smith at what was then known as Station Pool, later to become the famous Ashlea Pool in Gloucestershire where I live, I think it was he who unwittingly fired my enthusiasm to look at carp baits, rather than boiled spuds, of which he had a bin full...
