I don't know whether regular Sonubaits blog readers are aware of just how versatile Sonu Match Method Mix groundbait is, but I used it in an open end cage feeder and as a pole groundbait at Barston Lakes on the Kamasan British Open Final, to finish runner-up with a weight of 103lb.

I drew  a peg up in the 90s on the main lake and decided to start on a small cage feeder with a hard banded pellet on the hook. It was a mistake because I had no bites on the hard pellet, so imagine my surprise and delight when I started getting 'rod off the rest' bites from F1s the moment I changed to a 6mm hair-rigged expander.

I had also decided to fish a pole line for skimmers and at the all-in I had potted  in a couple of balls of groundbait just slightly larger than a golf ball.

These were made using Sonubaits' Match Method Mix, which had been wetted until it became sticky. I added maybe a dozen 4mm Sonu Fin Perfect Expanders to each ball, then rolled the balls around in a tub of unwetted Sonu  Fin Perfect 2mm Feed Pellets, so the balls looked like they were made up entirely of 2mm feed pellets.

I belive that up north, Paul Coyle, another Sonu-sponsored angler, refers to these as Ferrero Rochers. They may look like them but I wouldn't fancy eating a whole box of them!

Anyway, the good news is that skimmers and bream love 'em, and after an hour in which I caught 17 F1s on the feeder, I switched to the pole line.
I had been pinging a few 4mm Sonubaits Fin Perfect Feed Pellets in by catapult. These had been softened by wetting slightly, over the pole line to spread out the feeding zone for the fish. I wanted the skimmers to feel settled and confident before I set about plundering them.

The rig was a .3g Preston Innovations  PB Inter 1 shotted with a bulk of no 10s, with two number 10s droppers. The elastic was a Preston Innovations 9H Hollo and the main line was .13mm Preston Power Line to a .11mm Power Line hooklength, withn a Preston PR32 size 18 for the expander pellet hookbait.
I caught on and off throughout the match and the skimmers were handy fish, averaging around a pound and a quarter. I topped up with balls of Sonu Match Method Mix, containing just a few expanders, rolled in the 2mm Sonu Fin Perfect Feed Pellets, every three or four fish.

If it went quiet I fed more groundbait than pellets, to drag fish back into the peg, but once fish were there I'd give them a little ball of groundbait with pellets, to keep them rooting about. The bites were very slow, tiny 'unders' yet I would lift the pole tip and a skimmer would come to the net, hooked in the top lip.

At one point the sky went very black and a thunderstorm threatened. Most people stopped catching but I'd been flicking a few casters on a five-metre line from the off and when I went on it I caught 9lbs of roach and rudd in half-an-hour.

With 40 minutes remaining, the storm clouds had passed and back on my skimmer pole line I caught 17 or 18 skimmers to finish off a very satisfactory day out.The angler on my left weighed 20-odd pounds and the angler on my right had a weightof around 40lb, but I reckon it was the pulling power of Sonubaits' Match Method Mix which made all the difference.