It's not too many years ago that the mere mention of 20lb barbel seemed the stuff of fantasy, yet the second fish this season to breach that impressive barrier has just been landed! It was caught by Liam Williams from the middle reaches of the River Trent and weighed 20lb on the nose.
He started the day carp fishing on a lake with a friend, but after some disturbance from other anglers, the pair headed to the river instead.
“I stopped off on the way to get some maggots as I fancied having a go for barbel,” Liam told us.
“Arriving at the spot, I had a lead around and found a bit of slacker water where there was a ledge and decided to target that area.”
Fishing two rods – one with maggots, the other with Sticky Krill Active boilies – Liam was initially pestered by bream on the maggot rod.
“The boilie rod had been out for ages, but I’d been tricking a few baits over the top every half-hour or so,” he said.
“I then had a take, and hooked a really powerful fish that took 15 minutes to land. It tucked itself into that ledge I’d found earlier, and I had to give it a bit of slack to tease it out."
"Thankfully, it swam free, and I soon had it in the net. When I saw the size of it, I started shaking,” he recalled.
With four new British Record fish already having been accepted in what’s turning out to be a golden season for specimen fishing, we asked readers which species they thought might be next to go. An overwhelming 41% reckoned it would be barbel, with 57% saying it would come from the River Trent.
Liam’s fish certainly adds fuel to that fire, as come the end of the river season it’s likely to be pushing 22lb.
NEW TO BARBEL FISHING? OUR BEGINNERS GUIDE WILL GIVE YOU ALL THE TACKLE AND TIPS YOU NEED.
