Two pike for 76lb 10oz

Two huge pike with a combined weight of 76lb 10oz have topped a week to remember for predator anglers across the UK.

John’s epic 40lb 2oz trout water pike.

The specimens tipped the scales at 40lb 2oz and 36lb 8oz, and were taken during what Preston, Lancashire, angler John Rushworth described as ‘a day’s fishing I’ve waited for all my life.’

The 50-year-old engineer had never caught a pike over 30lb until a visit to an undisclosed
100-acre trout fishery saw him break this landmark with fish weighing 31lb 4oz and 21lb 8oz.

But the best was yet to come.

He returned the next day and just 30 minutes after casting out a float-legered mackerel he set his hooks into the fish of a lifetime.

“All the other boats on the water headed to the more sheltered areas because the weather was horrendous, but we braved it out in the teeth of the wind – and it paid off big time,” John told Angling Times.

“I knew this was something really special because it just held its ground with immense power.”

This 36lb 8oz pike was the smaller of John’s brace.

John and his boat partner carefully transported the pike to the shore, and after weighing and photographing his catch he headed back out to exactly the same spot... where he finished his session in incredible style.

“I just couldn’t believe it when I saw that no other boats had moved into the area,” John continued. “It must have been too windy for them.”

“Then we were away again and a big thirty was soon in the net. I’ll never experience anything else like this for as long as I live.”