I’ve had a great run lately and last Saturday I secured a match win in a 46-peg contest at the Blundells complex, using a tidy expander pellet approach, with Sonu Fin Perfect expanders, to catch F1s and the odd common carp.

I drew peg 3 on East Lake and fished at 16 metres in four feet of water, using a 4mm Sonu Fin Perfect expander pellet laid on three inches. I was lifting and dropping from time to time to entice bites, but I found fishing overdepth was the key as it negated the tow caused by the wind.

The feed consisted of a cadpot containing three expanders and around 15 Sonu 2mm Fin Perfect pellets, dripped in. I put three lots of pellets in the cadpot and squeeze the initial few hardest, a second skin slightly less firmly, and the top layer loose, so that I can feed three times in one ship across, as this saves a lot of time and results in more fishing time.

The float was a 4 x 10 Preston PB Inter 7 with a spread bulk of three number 10 shots at half-depth, with 2 x no 12 droppers. Main line as 0.13mm Preston Power and I finished the rig off with a.10mm diameter Preston Power hook-length. When the weather is still as cold as it has been at the start of March, you do not need to feed too much. A sensible approach like this will bring bites  - and it is worth trying corn down the margin at this time of year, too, as half of my winning weight came from the margin in the second half of the competition.