He told us “Liquidised bread is a brilliant loosefeed on rivers, but there’s one thing I like to do with mine that has just helped me land the chub of a lifetime. I used to match fish on rivers like the Nene, where fishing bread punch over liquidised feed was a key tactic. I noticed a few other anglers had started adding fine white aquarium gravel to their feed, which helped it to get down in the flow. Once I tried it, I noticed a massive difference in my catches, and it’s something I’ve added to my armoury ever since.

From observation in clear water, I’ve seen that when gravel is added to the feed, the small balls break up once they’re about 4ft down, creating what’s almost like a depth charge, with an explosion of bread that’s carried downstream in the lower layers of the river. Without the gravel, the balls break up much higher in the water column, and in strong flows, your feed is ending up all over the place.

These days, I do more specimen fishing, and on a recent trip to the River Derwent landed this 8lb 2oz chub on trotted flake fished over the liquidised bread and gravel feed. Usually, my preference when trotting is to fish maggots. However, the river was running with a few extra inches of water but was very clear, so I thought the bread could be worth trying.

After liquidising a few loaves and mixing it 75/25 with fine aquarium gravel, I was on my way to the river. I like to stay mobile and will generally fish a swim for about an hour before moving. As is typically the approach when float fishing for chub, I’ll spend a fair while feeding the swim before I put a float through, and this can be anything from 30mins to an hour. There’s no need to go crazy with the feed – I just plop little nuggets of bread into the swim every 30 seconds or so, which I hope will gain the chub’s confidence.

On that session, I’d fished two swims with no action, but had my eye on one swim where I’ve caught good chub before. It’s a shallow run, around 3ft deep, that suddenly drops into a pool around 7ft deep. I’d been building it with loosefeed for about 45 minutes, and on my very first trot down with a 20p sized piece of breadflake, the float buried. I struck into what I knew was a good fish right away, as it surged for snags on the far bank.

I managed to steer it away, and it was just nearing the net when it made a last dive for some reeds on my own bank – classic chub behaviour! It found the sanctuary, but with steady pressure I eased it free. When I saw it hit the surface, I knew it was a really special fish. I’ve landed a few ‘sixes’ before, but this thing was in a different league. The eight-pounder was weighed and witnessed, and with the light fading, I headed home after releasing it. What a result!”

Well done Koi!