Chris, who is the Tenchfishers Regional Officer for South Hants and Dorset, made the most of the warmer weather, using up the last of his holiday on a midweek session. Dropping in a favoured area, he fed a mixture of hemp, pellet and dead maggot on a plateau 50 yards out.

After just a few hours the action began, and he landed a string of fish to 9lb 10oz through the first night and into the morning. A lull followed, so he introduced a good hit of bait to kick things off again, and at 9pm his right-hand rod was away. Straight away, he was weeded up, but by putting the rod down and slackening off he got the fish moving, and after a bit of toing-and-froing, he slipped the big girl over the net.