Britain’s first 70lb carp banked
What a handful! Robby Harrison with The Avenue’s Big Rig.
This is the picture of the UK’s first 70lb carp.
The record-breaking specimen, known as Big Rig, tipped the scales at 71lb 4oz and was caught by Robby Harrison from The Avenue Fishery in Shropshire.
It’s the same fish that recently beat the current British best of 68lb 10oz at a weight of 69lb 3oz, meaning that it’s put on 2lb 1oz since it was caught by Tom Doherty just over six weeks ago.
It’s Robby’s first year on the syndicate and he made carp fishing history when he smashed his own personal best that stood at 41lb with Big Rig that took a balanced 16mm Mainline Hybrid boilie.
“This is like the angling version of winning the lottery,” said Robby, from Liverpool.
“One of my fellow anglers helped me net the fish, but he nudged it with the frame twice and it powered off on both occasions.”
“I told him to sink the net, but neither of us knew which fish it was so it was the sheer depth of its body that was colliding with the net.
“I didn’t have a head torch, so I didn’t see it straight away, but when I did I was blown away…I’ve never seen anything like it.
It’s a specimen that has been hand-reared by Avenue owner and boss of RH Fisheries Rob Hales, whose intentions of growing record-breaking fish have caused controversy within the sport.
But Robby agrees with others who believe that what Rob does is provide ‘ordinary’ anglers with the chance of catching the carp of their dreams without going abroad.
“I’m just a normal angler who wants to catch the biggest fish that I can,” Robby added.
“I don’t care what people say because I’ve caught a fish that filled me with emotions and excitement that made me feel like a boy again. Anyone who’s got a problem with that has to remember that it’s just fishing at the end of the day.”