I’m involved in a winter league series at the Makins complex and in the two rounds fished to date I have finished second overall with 124lb on the bomb and pellet, then won the second one individually, using Sonu Fin Perfect Feed pellets, polefished with a hard 8mm pellet banded to the deck.

On the second match I drew peg 13 on lake four on phase 1. The pegs are quite deep and the wind got up in my face and I ended up catching carp five metres out in five feet of water. I fished positively, feeding 6mm Sonu Fin perfect pellets by hand and when I went in over them after two hours, the float buried first drop in after about a minute.

The float was a half-a-gramme Preston Green which incorporated a bulk of number eight Preston Stotz with two number 10 Stotz strung out below the bulk.

The hook was a size 16 PR434 and I incorporated two number eight backshots into the rig to keep the float still in the very windy conditions.

On the previous winter league round I had drawn on lake 2, peg four on the A side. It features a small island and sometimes you catch there, sometimes you don’t.

But I noticed one or two carp moving while I tackled up, so I got my Preston C Series 12 foot feeder rod out of the holdall and used it with a bomb and a three foot tail of 0.17mm Preston Powerline. I lassoed an 8mm pellet while feeding 6mm pellets and although sport was slow I still managed to catch 124lb, with just 11 fish for the weight!

I like a long tail when bomb fishing because sometimes carp will snatch at the pellet as it falls through the water after the bomb has hit the deck. It’s a little tip that is worth a try this winter.