Tom Maker is not one for sitting behind motionless buzzers for very long. If it’s not happening and he thinks it should be, he’ll happily ring the changes…

We join Tom on the far bank of Linear Fisheries’ Manor Farm Lake, a venue which he knows well and has been no stranger to over recent months. By the time we reach him he’s been in a swim know as ‘the brown’ since the previous evening and has already enjoyed some notable success. Tom recounts what’s happened so far…“I travelled straight from one of the carp shows and had an idea that I wanted to get into this area: 'The Brown' was free so I shot straight round there. I know it’s often said that you should take each session as it comes and not decide on your swim until you get to the lake, but that’s not always strictly true. I know this place very well and given the conditions, wind condition, high pressure and forecast I knew where I wanted to be. Out in front of me at around 100 or so yards range it’s still relatively weedy from last year and the depths are around 6-8 feet, however from the other side of the lake, fishing towards the same area sees depths of more like 10-12ft. The forecast was set for warm and sunny conditions with high temperatures so I fancied my chances on both the bottom and in the upper layers of the water as the session progressed.

There are a couple of big girls in here that I really want to catch and they’re due to visit the bank some time soon. I knew that being able to fish on the bottom would give me the best chance of bagging one of them, but equally the conditions suggested that Zigs might also come into play....