January is usually a tough time of the year, and on our local venues we tend to be using bread punch quite a lot (See December), however, along with my already described mixes one mix that has been used successfully at this time of year on a number of venues is based upon Match Blend. I tend to use Match Blend as a "Bottom Up" mix, that is I expect it to hit the bottom and attract from the bottom , it is not a mix that I would try and mix "cloudy". The rules therefore for this mix is that it will lay on the bottom as an attractant, and we will not add much bait at all to the mix, in fact I have caught over two tangerine sized balls, with no feed in all day on the Grand Union Canal in the past.

One trick is that we also sieve the mix when the fishing is expected to be particularly hard. I am not a big fan of sieving my groundbait, but Match Blend seems to still work as it should when sieved.

It is a dark mix, and some people do add black die to their mix, but I prefer to add sieved canal black to further darken the mix.

I tend to mix Match Blend on the dry side, not sticky or too wet, it wants to "work" by fizzing, as it is this that creates the attraction.