BIG BARBEL JUST KEEP ON COMING

After 30 years on the Dove, switch to Trent sees 16lb best

INCREDIBLE barbel sport on the nation’s rivers continued this week, with a host of huge fish hitting the bank.

Respected specimen all-rounder John Davey hit the jackpot on his very first visit to the River Trent with a 16lb 14oz personal-best barbel.

The 69-year-old, from Stoke-onTrent, has fished the River Dove for over 30 years, but decided to give the in-form waterway a try.

His running rig was baited with a 16 mm Sticky Baits Krill boilie, and the hookbait was accompanied by a stringer of matching baits.

The offering was soon picked up by the specimen, that beats his previous pb by 1lb.

“This is an incredible fish for this time of the year, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it goes 19lb in the winter,” said John.

“At first I thought it was a bream, as it just plodded around, but as soon as it got into the deep water under my feet I realised how wrong my first prediction was.

“I was using a pretty big net, but you wouldn’t have thought it because the fish’s huge frame arched over in the mesh.

“It’s taken a long time to get on the Trent, but I’m getting back down there in the next few days after this,” he added.

Another angler to smash his personal best was Craig Horton, who banked two fish that many can only dream of.

Prebaiting a stretch of Farnham Angling Society’s River Loddon paid dividends as he won the battle with a 16lb specimen. He fooled it with hair-rigged pellets on a simple running rig.

It was the same tactics, but this time on a pressured free stretch of the Dorset Stour, that saw the angler – from Basingstoke, Hants – complete an incredible barbel double by slipping the net under a pristine 14lb 11oz barbel.

“These were my first two sessions of the river season, and they turned out to be my most memorable ever,” he said.