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.

Surprise perch catches in matches

When Gary Hampshire’s tip pulled round he suspected a carp to be the culprit, so you can imagine shock when he realised he was connected to this immense perch, caught on would you believe it, the bomb and pellet!

The fish came during a tricky day fishing at Doncaster’s Lindholme Lakes, where his 6mm bait was picked up by the special fish.

“At first, I thought it was a carp,” Gary revealed, “but when it broke the surface, I was absolutely gob smacked! I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Unfortunately, I didn't have any scales, but I ran back to van and got the tape measure.

“The fish was 48cm long, and I would guess it weighed over 4lb.”

Yorkshireman Darren Richards was also in for a shock when he banked this 4lb 3oz perch during a Christmas match with his local angling club.

Fishing the River Wharfe in Wetherby, West Yorkshire, Darren had been catching small dace, so he decided to change his hookbait in the hope of something larger.

“I thought I would try hemp and caster in the feeder with a small piece of worm on the hook for maybe a bigger dace or small perch,” Darren explained.

“I didn’t think for one minute I might catch a fish this size - it only just fit in my small landing net!

“I was and still am buzzing about catching a specimen fish and a new PB.”

The fish equals the Wetherby Angling Club’s record perch, and Darren went on to win the match with a weight of 4lb 7oz.

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!”

Perch trip of a lifetime

Angling videographer Robert Theobald enjoyed the perch trip of a lifetime this week – smashing his personal best three times in the same day.

Topping Robert’s catch was this 4lb 1oz specimen, which was backed up by three more fish weighing exactly 4lb each. The superb haul was taken from the same reservoir where Robert filmed his friend Charlie Coppollo catching a glut of big perch last month. All of Robert’s fish fell to Berkley Pulse shads in a perch pattern, presented on Berkley all-round jig heads.

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.

Test in form for magical roach

A flurry of big roach have been caught from the crystal clear waters of the River Test in the past few weeks Angling Times can reveal…

One of the best hauls came from match angler Aidan Bordiuk, who swapped his pole for a float rod during a recent session on the Hampshire river and took three roach over the 2lb barrier, topped by a fish of 2lb 3oz.

After spotting a group of big roach, Aidan spent over an hour feeding maggots to gain their confidence, and on his first run through connected with ‘the fish of a lifetime’.

“The float dipped straight away, and I was into a roach of over 2lb – I couldn’t believe it,” said Aidan.

“Over the next few hours I caught fish of 2lb 3oz, 2lb 2oz, 2lb and 1lb 14oz, as well as lots of other fish over the 1lb mark.

Aidan used 3lb line and a size 18 hook below an Avon-style float to fool the crafty specimens.

Angling Dreams boss Adam Fisher also struck silver recently when he swapped the beauty of the Wye Valley for the equally scenic River Test and was rewarded with this fine roach of 2lb 5oz.

Fishing with Fisherman’s Blues radio host Nigel Botherway, the pair shared a swim which required them to trot baits through a deep run for both roach and chub. 

Adam told Angling Times: “There was a hard and hacking upstream wind blowing, which made life tough even if it did help with our presentation. All the more reward to hook a fish like this!”

Adam fooled the fish on a single white maggot, ran through the swim under a float. The tactic also took a dozen other redfins over 1lb.

First grayling trip results in stunning lady

On his very first grayling trip, Alfie Naylor banked this stunning 2lb 11oz fish from the iconic River Itchen in Hampshire.

Using classic trotting tactics with a modern twist – braided mainline –  the fish was one of over 50 fish that the Newark rod banked over the course of a weekend session.

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.”

Four day quest for giant Lea roach

JOE Royffe’s four-day pursuit of a big River Lea roach finally turned up trumps with the capture of a 2lb 7oz specimen.

The Hertfordshire-based angler had spotted a brace of large redfins tucked under a reedbed and decided to target them on trotting gear with red maggots.

After hooking a number of smaller fish Joe finally struck into a strong resistance just before the light faded.

He said: “I was met with a solid resistance and could soon feel the classic jagged lunges and head shakes through the rod as the fish lunged around the swim.

“This has got to be one of my favourite captures so far this season – knowing how hard big roach are to come by on the Lea system.”