I have just competed in the UK Champs and had a cracking day’s sport at Barston in the final round, catching a net of F1s and skimmers on a feeder rig which involved Sonubaits 2mm Fin Perfect feed pellets and double expander pellet hook-bait.

I was dreading going to the match because I had heard on the grapevine that all the matches leading up to this round had been won by anglers Kinder-potting feed pellets and fishing expanders to catch F1s.
Up against the calibre of angler fishing the series, I didn’t fancy my chances of going up against them on that method, as it isn’t something that I do very much of.
But I got some great info just before the match off my good friend Adam Wakelin, who was quick to point out to me that those matches had been ‘float-only’ affairs.
It got my grey matter working and I sussed that fishing a small feeder a short distance out might be a way of presenting bait in a way the fish weren’t used to.
So on match day I drew peg 117, which was eight pegs from the end of the match length on the golf club bank.
Every other peg was in, so we had a bit of room for manoeuvre and I tackled up my Dutch Master 11ft 8” feeer rod with the softest tip fitted, to avoid bumping off the F1s, which averaged 8oz.
I rigged up a five-square wire cage feeder with an 18 gram weight loading and had a tail of 12 inches of 0.17mm Powerline with a size 18 PR36 hook, with a hair which was long enough to accommodate two 4 mm Fin Perfect expanders.
I used a full 2kg bag of Sonubaits Method Mix groundbait and three bags of Fin Perfect 2mm micro feed pellets.
At the all in I clipped up at 25 metres and had half-a-dozen casts to get some feed into my peg.
From then on I caught and I ended up with 100 fish for 32 kilos 100 grammes, which meant fourth place in the match. My net comprised 70 per cent F1s and the rest skimmers, which averaged 1lb 8oz apiece.
I had two hooklengths on the go, using a Korum Quick Change bead in my terminal tackle set-up.
This meant that while fishing and waiting for a bite, I could thread two expanders onto my ‘standby’ hooklength – it’s a little dodge that must be worth around 20 fish over a five-hour match.
As far as the expanders for the hook are concerned, I pumped three separate batches over the course of the five hours. I do this because after a couple of hours in water the expanders can become too soft, and when casting a feeder they an come of on the cast if their texture becomes too mushy.