THIS WEEK
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW FROM THE WORLD OF FISHING
66lb 8oz Waterside beast, the largest UK-bred carp, caught in stormy conditions
CARP angling’s history books have a new entry this week following the capture of the UK’s heaviest-ever common.
Weighing in at an almighty 66lb 8oz, it was landed by Kieran Duff during a wet and windy night at Waterside Fishery in Buckinghamshire.
Kieran, an electrician by trade, tempted it on a 15mm pop-up from Kingfisher Lake, where the famous big common had gone uncaught for the previous nine months. “I arrived with my daughter, Nancy, who was with me for the first day of a week-long session,” he told us.
“There’s an island at the end of the lake close to which, every year for the past few years, the big common has been caught in early April, so that’s where I headed.” The first 48 hours of the session were quiet, but then, while on a call to his wife, Kieran noticed a carp ‘flop out’ in the middle of the lake. “I swung two rods around to fish that zone – one right on the show, the other just over the back of a bar around 30 yards out,” he explained. “Both rods were baited with 15mm S7 pop-ups fished over a handful of mixed pellets and washed-out boilies, all from the DNA Baits range.” Afterwards, Kieran settled down to sleep, but just on midnight he was woken by a ‘bream-like bite’ which resulted in a mid-double stockie carp.
“I got the rod back out and drifted off to sleep. At 3.10am, my other rod, which was fished over the back of the bar, melted off,” he said.
“I lifted into it and knew instantly that it was something far, far bigger. It
