I used the Sonubaits F1 soft hooker pellets with success at Kent’s Monk Lakes on a recent Maver Pairs qualifier, notching second place on the day.
I drew on lake three and had an end peg, which gave me hope of a big weight. Fish between one and three pounds in weight, F1s and mirrors, are the main target.

But it was one of those days when the weather was up and down and the fish seemed strangely spooky. Normally at Monk Lakes you expect to spend the last hour of a match fishing down the edge, but on this match you would catch one or two fish in the margin swims and then they would spook. So I spent the final hour and a half on my 13 metre and 14.5metre line, catching what I could.

In all I estimate that I had around 60 fish for my 94lb 2oz weight, which put me second in the match. Sadly my partner did not fare as well and we missed a chance to qualify for Larford.

Nonetheless it was an excellent day’s sport with plenty of bites and the great thing about the Sonubaits F1 pellets is that when you are being plagued by small fish, they stay on the hook and you can lift and drop several times. You can do this whilest being safe in the knowledge that they are staying put on the hook until you hook a fish.

My rig for the swim at 13 metres was a .3g PB Inter, with shot string out to catch at all levels through the water. The main line was 0.15mm Preston Power Line to a .013mm Powerline hooklength, tied to a Preston PR28 size 18 hook. The pole was equipped with a top kit carrying Preston Hollo 13H elastic, in a Pulla Kit, and I fed 4mm Sonubaits Fin Perfect feed pellets with a catapult, opting for a 6mm F1 pellet on the hook. I just fed eight to 12 pellets every couple of put-ins with the pole, and tried to keep the swim ticking over.

Incidentally, now we are into mid-May, it is time to try fishing shallow for big weights of carp, and the Fin perfect Feed pellets are spot-on for this style of feeding and fishing. On a match last week at Tyler’s Common, I weighed 198lb 14oz, all on a  rig fished shallow on the pole, feeding Sonu Fin Perfect 4mm feed pellets and fishing with a banded 6mm Sonu Fin Perfect Feed Pellet on the hook.