2023 - 2024 SEASON
ONE BITE IS ALL IT TAKES!
IN ANY normal week David Gaskin’s incredible 42lb 8oz pike from Chew Valley Lake would be the ‘fish of the week’, but if you’re going to lose out, it may as well be to a British record!
David was fishing with boat partner Ed Wade in rough conditions, and they had caught nothing just an hour before they were due to return to the jetty.
Having joked to his friend that if either of them got a bite now ‘it would be from a monster’, 10 minutes later David’s float slid away and he struck into what he knew was a huge fish right from the outset, such was the sheer weight on the other end.
David said that when it surfaced, he and Ed looked at each other in awe at the sheer size of the truly special fish.
A herring deadbait was the winning offering.
RECORD DORSET STOUR BARBEL BANKED
DESPITE the famous Throop fishery on the Dorset Stour being just a few minutes’ bike ride from where he lives, Gary Wright has spent most of his time over recent years targeting other, free stretches of the famous southern waterway.
But this season he joined Ringwood & District AA, which has Throop on its books, and has wasted little time in getting among the venue’s biggest residents – as this huge 18lb 3oz 8dr barbel shows!
The mighty fish, which sets a new barbel record for the river, fell to a Klips boilie hookbait fished alongside a PVA bag of pellets. Gary said it put up a superb fight, running hard downstream and hugging the riverbed during a protracted battle.
HUGE THAMES CHUB ON BREAD
AFTER taking six months off fishing, James Hook returned with a bang last week when he landed this 8lb 8oz chub on link-legered breadflake.
He was on a low-stock stretch of the Thames which is rumoured to hold some very big fish, and after getting snagged in his first swim, James moved to another spot offering a bit of slack water near the far bank. After missing a bite on his first cast, he chucked back out and, 30 seconds later, received another indication and struck into a solid resistance.
Using a 1lb test curve rod and 5lb mainline, he said the fish felt like a dead weight as he brought it across the faster water near his own bank, before eventually managing to tease it upstream and into the net at the first time of asking.
BRACE OF THIRTIES IN ‘UNFORGETTABLE’ CHEW TRIP
ANOTHER angler sampling the spoils from a remarkable week on Chew Valley Lake was Shaun Dixon, who fished from the bank at the Somerset venue to land pike of 34lb 11oz and 38lb 11oz in two consecutive days!
Having made the mammoth journey down from his home i
