17lb 8oz barbel caps big finish on rivers
Record-breaking barbel and huge chub topped the list of specimens this week as the nation’s rivers produced an incredible end-of-season finale.
Anglers across Britain certainly didn’t let flood conditions stand in their way, and one of the men hunting a new personal best was Richard Easom, who targeted the River Trent and banked a massive 17lb 8oz barbel.
With only a few hours to spare until the beginning of the traditional closed season, the Nottinghamshire angler employed a cautious baiting approach that involved introducing a mixture of pellets and crushed boilies via a PVA bag.
His ploy failed to provoke an early response, but his patience was rewarded as the tip arched over with an hour of the season remaining. He said: “As I lifted the rod I felt a heavy resistance and I knew I was into one of the bigger residents.
“I felt in control for most of the fight, but it made one last desperate attempt to escape and I was forced to pile on as much pressure as I dared to get it away from the snags.
“I’ve had an extremely enjoyable season on the river and this was the perfect end to it,” he added.
Big barbel were also in plentiful supply on the Hampshire Avon, but nobody could quite match the achievement of Phil Nixon, who smashed the venue record.
The Ringwood DAA secretary slipped the net under the 16lb 15oz fish on the final day after it fell for his fishmeal boilie hookbait and he told Angling Times: “It put up an incredible scrap and it is a great feeling to smash not just the club record but also the river best.
“To catch it so late in the season made it really special and it’s a fish I won’t be forgetting in a hurry.”
He wasn’t the only angler to taste success on the Hampshire Avon as Pete Kibby came up trumps with a huge 7lb 13oz chub.
Having lost a fish early in the morning, he was determined to set the record straight and was given a major surprise just hours later. He said: “I returned in the evening with maggot feeder tactics and I couldn’t believe it when I managed to bank the fish that the hook had pulled out of in the morning.”
“Earlier in the season I had a 2lb roach from the Medway after a 40-year wait and this catch is well up alongside that achievement.”
The venue’s big roach were Tim Lennon’s sole focus and the shoals obliged when he took an impressive 2lb 14oz specimen.
It was his third biggest redfin ever and fell to feeder tactics with three red maggots on the hook, with only a few hours of daylight left. He employed 3lb Daiwa Sensor line straight through to a Drennan Specimen size 12 hook to tempt the huge redfin.
“In recent weeks I’ve spent a lot of time searching for a roach like this; they are becoming harder and harder to find,” explained Tim.
“Thankfully it all paid off on my last session of the season. It’s the biggest I’ve had for many years and is just 2oz short of my current river pb,” he said.
Piling in the bait eventually paid dividends for Neil Maidment when he caught a 7lb 11oz chub from the prolific Throop Fishery area of the Dorset Stour.
Floatfished maggots proved the downfall of the new personal best and he said: “I fed six pints of maggots and it seemed to get the fish competing, with a number of decent chub coming in the morning before the biggest if them all.”
Giant barbel from the Trent
A bait-and wait campaign has accounted for the capture of one of the River Trent’s biggest ever barbel topping the scales at 17lb 9oz.
The popular venue was almost bursting its banks, but that didn’t stop Adrian Garside from beating his personal best with this stunning specimen.
The Stoke rod embarked on an overnighter slightly upstream of a likely-looking area of slack water.
While many anglers would cast out a rig from the off, Adrian remained patient and began to feed his swim with a bed of crushed pellets to draw the barbel into his swim.
“The Trent was up to its peak and flowing steady, but I still had confidence,” Adrian said.
“My swim was around 8ft deep, so I had to use a heavy feeder to ensure the feed was being deposited on the riverbed. I made eight casts and after each one I left the feeder to rest for at least 20 minutes so that the pellets could settle.”
It was a tactic that drew immediate results – within the first three hours of the evening barbel weighing 13lb 12oz, 7lb 1oz and 6lb 12oz, had fallen for Adrian’s 14mm dumbell hookbaits.
An hour later yet another bite resulted in something much heavier.
“I was fishing upstream so the bite only resulted in a couple of taps on the rod, but when I struck I knew this fish was in a different league,” Adrian continued.
“It put up a cracking fight and I had to stop the clutch a few times as it dived hard for a tree – but I soon managed to bully it to the net…all 17lb 9oz of it!”
The new pb smashed Adrian’s previous best of 14lb 11oz – a fish that Adrian had banked just a week prior to his most recent trip.
His set-up consisted of a 1.5lb Kevin Baines Specialist rod complete with a Shimano Baitrunner reel loaded with 40lb braid. This was connected to a 15lb braided hooklink, a size 6 hook and a large swimfeeder fished on a simple running rig.
Prebaiting campaign ends with 15lb 7oz river barbel
A two-month prebaiting campaign saw top specialist Adrian Eves beat his barbel personal best with this 15lb 7oz River Thames specimen.
Catching big fish by design can often be about sheer patience and determination, and Adrian has these attributes in abundance – as he showed when he visited his chosen stretch twice a week for two months to introduce a few handfuls of boilies each time.
It was this careful preparation, designed to get the resident barbel feeding in a certain spot without filling them up, that finally paid dividends for the Fox and Dynamite Baits-backed angler.
“Too many anglers just pile a load of bait in the night before and think that there’s a chance the fish are going to be there ready and waiting,” said Adrian.
“But I’ve found that small quantities of bait introduced on a more regular basis is the way forward, especially if the fish in your chosen river are fished for a fair bit.”
Despite semi-flooded conditions, the new personal best provided the Surrey-based specialist with the only bite of his session when it took a Dynamite Baits The Crave boilie that was fished in conjunction with a coated braid hooklink and a size 6 Kuro S2 hook.
It’s a fish that beats his previous best for the species that stood at 15lb and was banked from the River Kennet in Berkshire.
“It was just one of those days when I knew something was going to happen. I said to someone that morning that I knew I was going to catch a big barbel, and I was right,” Adrian continued.
“To make all that effort in visiting the river to introduce the bait might seem a lot of work to some people but, believe me, if you put the time in, you’ll reap the rewards.”
Centrepin record for barbel?
This is an image of what is believed to be one of the biggest barbel ever to be caught using a centrepin reel.
Weighing a colossal 16lb 10oz, it was caught by Phil Buckingham, from the renowned stretch of the River Lea at Kings Weir.
The 64-year-old vice president of the Barbel Society, tempted the fish using a small piece of punched Spam hair-rigged to a size 4 Drennan hook during a short evening session on the prolific waterway.
17lb barbel hit for matchman
A matchman who’s been barbel fishing for only five months has banked one of the biggest braces of the species in history.
Former British match record holder Craig O’Brien banked two barbel of 17lb 10oz and 17lb 8oz, along with another fish of 13 lb 11oz during an incredible session on the River Trent.
The Birmingham match ace took a break from 15 years on the competition circuit during the summer, and since then has banked 27 double-figure barbel from rivers across the UK.
But despite his unprecedented success with the species, nothing could have prepared him for the day’s fishing that unfolded on the banks of the venue that many believe could produce the next British record.
“This barbel fishing is that easy I might have to go back to the match scene,” joked Craig.
“It really has been incredible as I really can’t do anything wrong at the moment. Some of my specimen fishing friends are a little miffed to say the least – they’ve now nicknamed me ‘golden balls’.
“I was a specimen angler before I got into match fishing and used to fish all the famous carp waters such as Wraysbury, Savay and Yatley, so it’s not as if I haven’t targeted big fish before.”
The biggest barbel sets a new personal best for Craig, who once held the British match record with a 308lb 6oz net of carp taken from Earlswood Reservoir. He tempted the fish with feeder tactics and a home-made krill and coconut pellet.
It’s not just the Trent that has produced huge fish for him – he’s also banked doubles from rivers such as the Avon and Severn.
“I love travelling to different venues in search of the biggest barbel because they all offer a different challenge,” he said.
