He told us “I headed to Sutton Pool in Shropshire, where my plan was to stay mobile and watch the water for any signs of fish. Location is, as always in fishing, key to success, and whilst many people choose to sit it out in proven areas, I wanted to focus my attention on spots the fish were definitely in, even if it is a pain to pack up and move!

On this session, I was in my fourth swim of the day when I spotted what looked like a large crucian roll on the far margin. I kept my eye on the spot, and over the next few hours, I saw two more fish roll, so decided to focus my attention on the swim for the remainder of the afternoon. With fish in an area, the last thing I wanted to do was disturb them by spombing out a load of bait, so I carefully walked around the pool and scattered a few handfuls of 2mm pellets, F1 corn, and dead maggots before returning to my swim.

I clipped-up two rods, rigged with 30g Methods, short 3″ hooklinks, size 16 hooks and double red maggot hookbaits. All was quiet for a couple of hours before a drop-back bite from a crucian of around 2lb boosted my confidence. I walked around again and topped the swim up before recasting, and it wasn’t long before I had another take.

Lifting the rod, I initially thought I had hooked a carp as the fish powered away to my right with far more strength than you would expect from a crucian. It almost reached a sunken tree on my nearside margin, but my tackle held and, once it started fighting in ‘circles’ under the rod tip, it became clear that I’d hooked my target species. A few seconds later a I bundled a huge crucian into the net and knew straight away that it was a new PB. The scales confirmed this with a weight of 4lb 5oz, beating a 4lb 1oz fish caught last spring. It was an awesome start to my campaign.”