I can’t begin to explain how thrilled I feel after scooping a double in the Preston Innovations Festival at White Acres, followed by the Park Dean Masters £25,000 winner-takes-all crown – but I put a lot of my success down to Sonubaits’ Fin Perfect feed pellets, used on the hook, and Sonu groundbait.

On the Preston Festival I had four very good days out of five and the pick of the bunch in my mind was the Wednesday match when I drew on Twin Oaks. I had not drawn an out-and-out carp area but I decided on a three-pronged attack – and I am glad to say that it worked well, resulting in a hard-earned section win.

I kicked off using the new Preston Innovations 10ft F1 feeder rod, chucking an inline Preston Method feeder 25 yards to an island. I used fishery micro-pellets moulded around the feeder, with a 6mm Sonubaits’ Fin Perfect feed pellet banded to a size 16 PR36 hook.

This brought me an initial run of fish, but in the middle of the match when the proper carp switched off the feed, I decided to fish the middle at 14 metres on the pole, targeting F1s on a Sonu Fin Perfect 4mm feed pellet under a light pole rig, with a soft No 11 Preston Hollo elastic. The hook was a razor-sharp Preston PR21.

I put the fish I caught in the middle of the match in a separate net and when I weighed them, they gave me 50lb, which, as it turned out, made all the difference to the result.

In the last hour I came down the edge, fishing meat over F1 groundbait, and I caught four carp that gave me around 25lb. My total catch weighed 99lb 12oz for a section win. I was really pleased with the weight as I felt I had done everything to extract the maximum from the peg.

The timings of my switches from far bank to middle to margin were critical and I like to think I got them about right.

More importantly, the section win kept me on course to scoop the £4,000 first prize in the Preston Festival, and victory in this ensured I was in the 24-man winner-takes-all Park Dean Masters match!