Short session expert Rob Hughes has spent years honing his skills at catching carp when on limited time so we asked him to share ten of his very best tips on how to make the most of it when the hands of time are against you...

Tip One - Travel Light

One of the biggest barriers to participation, especially with short sessions is the fact that prepping the kit takes time. The more we have, the more time it takes to prep. Strip it down. Travel as light as possible. If your kit’s ready to go at the drop of a hat, there is more chance that you will go. Also if you need to move around the venue, less stuff equals more moving. For my short session fishing I use 12ft three-piece Warriors S rods along with 10,000 EOS reels. This set up is so small they take up virtually no space and can live in the van almost all the time, meaning that I'm almost always ready to go.

Tip Two – Get It Right With Rigs

One of the the quickest ways to catch fish on a short session is being able to put a rig to fish that you've seen rather than waiting for one to come to you. Opportunist captures are brilliant and I have caught a significant number of fish by simply spotting carp and casting to them. However if you don't know the lake you may not know what you’re fishing over, and that's a recipe for disaster. If the water is clear then you should assume that there will be weed on the bottom, in patches if not all over. Randomly pub chucking is a dangerous pastime but Chod Rigs take out a bit of the risk. A single bait on a ready-tied choddie cast out on a tight line and felt down to check the donk allows you to get away with single cast fishing with a degree of confidence.