One of the biggest braces of zander ever recorded
LANDSCAPE Gardener Matthew Ward was left stunned when he banked one of the biggest braces of zander ever recorded in the UK.
The 35-year-old recorded specimens of 11lb 9oz and 17lb 9oz during a trip to Upton-on-Severn and both obliterated his previous personal best of around 6lb.
He said: “The larger zander gave me quite a strange bite – initially I just tightened up to my float, thought ‘this feels a bit heavy’, and I was into the fish.
“I soon realised just how big the zander was as I eased it towards the net, and I was praying that it didn't come off!”
Both of Matthew’s zander fell to chub livebait fished via a float-paternoster rig.
British record barbel - the full story...
THE BRITISH barbel record has been beaten following the capture of a 21lb 2oz giant.
Self-confessed pleasure angler Colin Smithson, who banked the fish from an undisclosed river in Sussex, revealed that he ‘almost drove into a ditch’ when a friend told him that he had just beaten the national best for the species.
The fish beats the old record, set by Grahame King with a fish from the Great Ouse in 2006, by just 1oz, and was taken during a short afternoon session on a club-owned stretch of river.
Colin (60), who retired last year, revealed how the capture was just reward for the countless blank hours he had spent on the tricky, low-stock waterway over the past 15 years.
“It’s a difficult river. You could go every day for three months and not catch a fish, so this one has been a long time coming,” said Colin, who caught the fish on November 7.
“On the afternoon that I caught it, the conditions were brilliant. The river was 3ft up and coloured, and still rising steadily. I fished the swim for an hour then introduced some sticky groundbait on the crease line of a marginal slack to put down a scent trail.
“After an hour or so a big mirror carp rolled in front of me and sent up a sheet of bubbles from my spot. After a while I called my daughter and said ‘I’m going to give it another 25 minutes as I think something might happen’… and it certainly did!”
When he got the bite, Colin presumed he was playing the big carp he’d seen roll earlier, and it wasn’t until the back-end of the fight that his opinion changed.
He said: “The tip went knock, knock, bang! And my first thought was ‘I’ve got that carp on’. The fish it was doing big loops around the swim, making really strong runs. When I finally got it to the surface I could only see its back, and at first I thought ‘Wow, it’s actually a common carp!”
“Things then got scary when it snagged me under the bank. I got it moving again, and when it hit the surface a second time I could see it was a barbel. My heart started pounding as it again dived for the same snag, but it all came good in the end!”
Colin’s catch was photographed and weighed in the presence of other club members, before being released. But it wasn’t until he was on his way home that Colin learned the significance of his capture.
“I thought that I had smashed the club record. When I told my friend Bradley Hughes the weight, he replied: ‘That’s not just a club record!’ At that point I almost put my car in the ditch! The next day I contacted the British Record Fish Committee and got the process going.”
The remarkable catch also evoked poignant emotions for Colin, as he revealed.
“I want to dedicate this catch to my brother Roy, who died a couple months ago aged 63. He lived for fishing and was a National disabled fishing champion. When I got the fish in the net I looked up at the sky and said: ‘I don’t know if that was you, but thanks Roy’. He would have loved to see this fish. It’s an incredible creature and I’m a very happy man – my Mount Everest has been climbed.”
The fish fell to a hair rigged pellet on a size 10 hook on an 8lb hooklink attached to a Banjo feeder, a pattern which Colin believes holds bottom well on rivers. He beat it using a 1.75lb Shimano Vengeance rod and a 6000-sized reel loaded with 15lb mainline.
Nine hours, one bite, 35lb!
Ronan Murray only had one bite during a nine-hour piking session... but he wasn’t complaining when it turned out to be from this huge 35lb 7oz fish!
Targeting a water in his Irish homeland, Ronan presented a floatfished roach to fool his quarry, and he knew he was into something a little bit special straight away.
“When I struck I realised instantly I was connected to a good fish, and after a long hard fight I eventually got her in the net.
“I knew this was close to my PB which stands at 36lb 4oz, from December last year, but when the scales stopped at 35lb 7oz I was still a happy man!”
Monster chub comes out after dark
Chub don’t get much fatter than this 7lb 13oz cracker taken from the Great Ouse by James Crameri.
The train station supervisor, from Bury St Edmunds, was targeting a favourite swim on a fining-down river, but it wasn’t until the hours of darkness that the specimen pulled the quivertip round.
“It was the only bite of the evening although in fairness I didn’t fish much longer after catching it as my desire to continue had been overtaken by the size of the chub I’d just caught!” said James, who used a legered boilie on a semi-fixed rig cast to the crease, with a PVA bag of loose offerings nicked on to the hook.
Bumper roach haul after three day feed
A prebaiting campaign on his local River Itchen paid off handsomely for big-fish man Roman Vann when he put together an astonishing haul of roach to a top weight of 2lb 5oz.
Priming his swim with hemp for three days prior to his session, Roman waited until a low pressure front had moved in and he could see numbers of roach in the swim.
This resulted in a catch which included three fish over 2lb to 2lb 5oz, along with half a dozen over 1lb 12oz.
He told Angling Times: “The last three relatively calm and mild winters seems to have bolstered roach numbers and weights on the southern rivers.
“The plan seemed to work perfectly as each time I checked the swim the concentration of roach was increasing.
“When roach are feeding actively there is no need to fish too fine because you will just lose more large fish to hook-pulls.”
Romans haul fell to maggot feeder tactics with three maggots on a size 12 hook tied to a 5lb hooklength.
Big chub are rare on the Yare
THE River Yare isn’t noted for its chub sport but local angler Ben Parfitt proved otherwise when he slipped the net under this 6lb 11oz chunk.
Over the last month the all-rounder has been link-legering luncheon meat into likely areas on the Norfolk waterway, which culminated in a new personal best of 5lb 15oz around three weeks ago.
Believing that there was a bigger chub to be caught on his chosen stretch however, Ben persevered and managed to beat his chub record by almost a pound during his latest visit.
Big Thames chub the perfect remedy
DESPITE suffering from a severe cold Ken Hellewell braved harsh weather to get out and bank this fin-perfect 7lb 1oz chub.
The Farnborough-based angler reluctantly headed to a length of the River Thames and was forced to fish areas of slack water due to the floods.
He said: “I’d only fished for four hours as I really wasn’t feeling well, and I had to settle of fishing the slacks as the river was so high.
“I’d fed four areas with liquidised bread and fished a chunk of flake over the top on the hook.
“It was my only bite of the session but at 7lb 1oz I was very happy I’d made the effort to get out.”
Meaty hookbait fools Ouse specimen
Every season the Great Ouse produces big chub, and for Mark Austin the river certainly didn’t disappoint with this cracking 7lb 9oz specimen.
Targeting a stretch of the river in Milton Keynes, the big chub took a legered Pallatrax ‘Meatbeast Squabs’ presented on a size 8 hook.
Mark revealed that this tactic has been effective for other fish from the same stretch: “I smashed my Chub PB (previously 6lb 13oz) with this stunning fish at 7lb 9oz,
the same tactic has also produced five big chub over 5lbs in two sessions along the same stretch.”
Angler lands giant sturgeon twice in one month!
IN the fishing world lightning does indeed strike twice, as Stuart William Larkin found when he caught the same giant sturgeon two times in the same month.
The monster fish bottomed out Stuart’s 70lb scales the first time he tempted it from Hollyhurst Lake Fishery near Birmingham, but little did he know he would have to do battle with it again two weeks later.
It took a liking to two very different hookbaits too, the first time falling to a quarter tin of luncheon meat and the second time a pair of 10mm boilies.
Skill, not brute force, is required to land big fish - Keith Arthur
Catching a fish over 80lb on carp tackle is a brilliant feat.
No matter how strong the tackle, exerting pressure on a fish using a long rod is not easy.
I once challenged a good carp angler to make a drag set at exactly the test curve of the rod work. It was an original Daiwa Emblem and a 2.75lb Kevin Nash Amorphous 12ft. He couldn’t do it without putting the butt on the floor, bracing it against his knee and pulling with both hands.
I was only holding the reel, not walking away – that would have flat-rodded him and set the drag off, as a fish would do.
Anyway, hats off to Jacqueline Horvath, who landed an 86lb carp from monster carp water Euro Aqua. There’s a degree of skill in getting the fish to take the bait, but that is nothing like the skill (strength barely comes into it, by the way) required to put a fish of that size over a landing net.
TO READ THE FULL STORY ON JACQUELINE’S CATCH VISIT: https://www.carpfeed.com/fishing-news/article/is-this-the-first-90-pounder-banked-by-a-woman-video
FOR MORE FROM FISHING’S TOP COMMENTATOR PICK UP ANGLING TIMES THIS TUESDAY!
Middle Severn on fire for double figure barbel
WHILST some anglers may have been put off by the high coloured water and cold conditions this past week, Robert Mitchell headed out to his local River Severn and was rewarded with a fine brace of double figure barbel.
Fishing with 15mm Catalyst boilies on a middle section of the Midlands river, Robert banked specimens of 10lb 6oz and 11lb 1oz - not bad for November!
He told Angling Times: “The river is very fishable at the moment and in a couple days will be perfect for chub, which are a popular target for Severn anglers in the colder months.
“With the water temperature at 9.3 degrees, the barbel are still worth trying for too.”
Rob fished his rigs over a bed of 2mm/4mm pellets and presented his boilie hookbait on a simple running rig made up of Bank Tackle components.
Three double figure bream and a giant hybrid!
Ian Hannaby trio of Double Figure Bream and 7lb 5oz hybrid
A hectic 15 minute spell resulted in three double figure bream landed by specimen angler Ian Hannaby, the biggest of which was 11lb 4oz.
Fishing three rods on three different spots around 20 yards apart, Ian had the quick hit of bream just after dark on a 10mm Ringers Chocolate Orange Wafters.
Amazingly, no other bream followed, however did land this immense 7lb 5oz hybrid!
