Around Christmas I still managed to get out and attend one or two matches at Warrington’s prolific Brookside complex. Fishing through the ice requires some finesse and I managed a section win using 4mm Sonu Fin Perfect expanders, catching 5 F1s for a total weight of 8lb.

The peg was three feet deep and I tackled it with a 3 x 8 Preston PB8 float, with just five number 12 micro-dust shot strung out to achieve a very slow, delicate drop through the water. I fed very little, just four micro pellets at a time, as it was extremely hard to get bites. I used a Preston Slip Original number six elastic on a puller kit through the top three of my Preston Innovations The One pole. Having such a small float and such tiny shot means the pellet hookbait is slow falling, giving the angler a bigger window of opportunity to induce a bite.

On days in winter when there is no wind to contend with, this ultra-light approach can pay big dividends. Over Christmas I also won a match at Blundells with 53lb of F1s and mirror carp, using maggots on the hook instead of pellets. I just fed three maggots at a time through a small Preston Cad Pot and laid the same 3 x 8 rig into six feet of water. Ninety per cent of the time the bites came within five seconds of the float settling up. An interesting tip for winter is to try over-shotting your float by a fraction, then using Preston Bristle Grease to get the bristle to show through the surface film. You can’t achieve a more sensitive style of presentation.