Short session barbel success

Fishing short evening sessions has proved successful for Jimi Loten so far this autumn and he has landed a string of barbel from the River Lodden topped by this 14lb 3oz specimen.

The 13-year-old schoolboy targeted a weedy stretch of the waterway controlled by Farnham Angling Society and fooled the fish, which was 2lb short of his personal best for the species of 16lb 4oz, with a 16mm Berkley Tuna Spice boilie wrapped in paste.

He said: “The fish put up a really good scrap and I had to actually push the weed away with landing net pole to get the fish close enough to net.”

Jimi mounted his hookbait on a size 12 Gardner Mugga hook and a 12lb mono hooklink.