What a brilliant week for barbel!

An incredible week for big barbel has seen a raft of heavyweight specimens landed from a host of popular river stretches over the past seven days.

The Lea, Wye and Kennet all hit top form for the species, with big double figure fish landed from all, as did the River Dove, where Trevor Brown slipped his net under a fine barbel weighing 15lb on the nose.

The 63-year-old from Wednesfield, West Mids, was fishing the Burton stretch of the river when he hooked the fish at 12.15am after it picked up his pellet hookbait.

For more details and pictures of this catch, plus all the other memorable hauls from the nation’s rivers, see tomorrow’s Angling Times.