For a few years now I’ve used polyballs when fishing for catfish. The rig is a length of tough nylon, about 6ins long, tied to the eye of the hook. The bait is lip-hooked and the polyball floats above the bait. The idea is to keep the Livebait working and to prevent it burying itself in any weed that could be present. It has been a very successful ploy for many catfish anglers.

Until now though, the polyballs were available only in boring black or some other dull colour. Now some bright spark at Fox, who knows that red is a very attractive colour to all predatory fish (all fish, bar none, I reckon – look at the success of red maggot) decided that the polyball, or Bait Popper, as Fox call them, may as well do two jobs – make the bait buoyant and be an attractor in its own right. They are proving successful with all predatory species.

So now we have bright red Bait Poppers in two sizes, medium and large, with four in the medium pack for £ 2.99 and three in the large pack for the same price.

An old idea made even better with a splash of colour.