While Christmas and the New Year saw a big freeze halting fishing for many anglers all over the UK, I was fortunate enough to take second-place in a New Year’s Eve match with 50lb 10oz weight of skimmers – caught on a combination of Sonubaits’ F1 groundbait and Sonu Fin Perfect expander pellets.

The venue was Furnace Lakes at Slindford near Horsham, Sussex, and my peg was around seven feet deep at 14 metres. I used a 4 x 16 Preston PB3 Inter float which had a bulk of five number eight shots two feet from the hook, with three number 10s spread equally, the closest to the hook being some eight inches from the hookbait.

On the all-in I cupped in three decent-sized balls of Sonu F1 Groundbait in one spot at the 10 o’clock position, and fed one ball of groundbait in my swim on the same 14-metre line in the two o’clock position. Main line on the pole rig was .11mm Preston Powerline and the hooklength was .08mm Powerline, finished off with a size 20 Preston Innovations PR32 hook, on to which I attached a 4mm Sonu Fin Perfect expander. I set up a yellow number six Preston Slip original elastic through the top two of my Preston GiS12 pole and got down to my fishing.

After a couple of hours I had caught a few fish but I wasn’t setting the world on fire so I gambled and refed my ‘big’ peg with three more balls of Sonu F1 groundbait and it was like flicking a switch as the bream came back into the swim with a vengeance. The re-feed really triggered them and I ended up feeding a ball of F1 groundbait after every third fish. It was a skimmer a put-in from then until the end of the match, with the samples ranging from a pound to 1lb 8oz.

Now a quick word about mixing the Sonu F1 groundbait. I use a round bowl with a flat base and I’ll pour the groundbait in so that it covers the base an inch deep. I then cover the groundbait with water, as you would with dry feed pellets, by a few millimetres, and I leave it so that the groundbait can soak up the water. Ten minutes later the groundbait goes solid, like a dry cake mix, and I just use a riddle, push it through and it crumbles and becomes the perfect groundbait. It’s a failsafe way to create the perfect groundbait texture every time. Even in winter when the fisha re feeding you can get through a two kilo bag in a five-hour match. Fish seem to love devouring it.