The River Trent match record has been broken with an enormous 226lb haul of barbel and bream.
England Freestyle Feeder team member Joe Jaggar banked 45 slabs, eight barbel and a chub during a six-hour contest on a stretch of the waterway that the controlling club wish to remain unnamed.
Taking part as a guest in the local league event, he was given early hope of a red-letter day when one regular told him he’d drawn ‘the best peg in England’.
Come the final whistle it was hard to argue with that, as Joe’s long-range feeder tactics worked from start to finish.
“I felt confident that I’d be in for a good day, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect to catch a weight like this,” explained Joe.
“I was chucking my cage feeder 66m to the cover on the far bank. A lot of the bites came soon after the feeder had landed, in fact one came just seven seconds after I’d cast out!”
Strong tackle was used with the barbel in mind – Joe relied on 8lb mainline, a 12lb shockleader and a 0.23mm mono hooklength to a size 8 or 10 hook. He kicked off by feeding a mixture of groundbait and particles through the feeder before switching to mushy pellets. A bunch of maggots was the best hookbait.
His catch eclipses the previous record of 192lb 8oz taken by Mick Vials in 2015 – although that was in a five-hour contest.
The catch capped off a memorable week for Joe in which he took the Angling Times cameras to Lake Windermere for a session where he caught over 200lb of bream (you can watch that video by clicking here), Joe added:
“I think it’s safe to say I’ll probably never have another week like that on the bank!”
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