Yet another barbel over the sensational twenty-pound mark has been landed from Kings Weir Fishery on the River Lea, after Nathan Buckingam slipped the net under this specimen of 20lb 9oz.
Amazingly, it was caught just a few days after he landed one of 19lb 8oz, giving him two barbel for an ounce over 40lb! His first session was on a Monday that he’d taken off work after spending the weekend in Yorkshire with family.
He started off in a well-trodden swim but didn’t feel things were quite right, so dropped into an area that many anglers walk past.
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It’s not a swim that screams fish, hence the lack of attention it receives, however after moving his hookbait – a single lump of Spam - Nathan stumbled across a slightly deeper hole. Within 30 minutes he’d landed the ‘nineteen’ – a fish that shattered his previous PB of 18lb 2oz.
Nathan returned a few days later, this time for an after-work evening session, and yet again cast a lump of luncheon meat into that same depression, with no loosefeed. He went one better this time, landing the 20lb 9oz fish.
It’s the second twenty-pounder Kings Weir has produced in what’s been a remarkable few months for the stretch.
Nathan’s dad, Phil, explained that despite the Lea being a relatively narrow waterway, it’s crucial that your hookbait is in the ‘right’ part of the swim.
“The big barbel have patrol routes and will often enter and leave swims through the same areas,” he revealed.
“It can be the same in the main weirpool, where there are specific spots that produce. If your hookbait isn’t in the fish’s path, you might never know they were there.”
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