Luke Blaydon, by email

QThese days I can only fish day sessions. My lake is quite shallow, about eight acres, and holds about 200 fish to 35lb. If you could use just one rig, one bait and one tactic, what would it be? First, I will say that the anglers I know who practise this one dimensional ‘one rig, bait and tactic’ style of fishing never catch all that many fish. They will do all right at certain times but the essence of being adaptable is the key to really successful carp fishing.

If I had to pigeonhole my tactics as you have asked then they would be as follows...

Bait: This would be a boilie approach and I would opt for Krill as I believe it to be such a good bait that honestly, if I wasn’t in a fortunate position, I would buy it tomorrow. It’s a pungent, rich bait that works everywhere and is particularly effective with big fish.

ATactics: I’d fish 16mm baits, feeding with the throwing stick or catty if there wasn’t any weed and using an Airbomb or Spomb for more specific applications. I’d generally be fishing for a bite at a time, perhaps 100 baits per rod, but would up it immediately if I thought the fish were really up for it. (With 200 carp in the lake, you could have them descend on you in numbers and if that happens, you could get through a lot of bait).

Rig: A nice simple Multi Rig would be all I’d need, and that would allow me to fish either a pop-up or a bottom bait without making any changes.

Good luck mate!