Record carp
Monster mirrors landed days apart
Full story and pictures of the new British record fish
TWO monster carp have shaken the angling world as both the British and world records were unofficially toppled.
Just 48 hours before a 108lb monster mirror was banked in Hungary (full story 44), a carp weighing more than the current British record was landed in Cambridgeshire – and this time it will be claimed.
The fish, Captain Jack, from Holme Fen in Cambridgeshire, weighed 68lb 8oz and was caught by Suffolk angler Nigel Ludbrook.
The same fish was caught at 68lb 5oz – 3oz above the current British record held by the nowdeceased Parrot from Wasing in Berkshire – in September, but the captor remained anonymous and did not claim it as a record.
Self-employed bricklayer Nigel caught the giant mirror half-way through a 48-hour session on the open-access venue.
He said: “I was shaking like a leaf, I didn’t know what to say or do.
“It still hasn’t sunk in that it’s the largest carp in the land.”
The 49-year-old was fishing with pal Richard Read on a trip to
celebrate their turning 50 this year.
“It was the session of a lifetime,” said Nigel, who also saw Richard land a 53lb 2oz mirror.
Recalling the moment Captain Jack took his hookbait placed 50yds out from the Beach Double swim, he added: “It was a typical big-fish bite, really.
“It just pulled the bobbin up about an inch and a half, then the rod tip started to shake a little before it ripped off.
“It felt a good fish from the off, but there are lots of 40s and 50s, so I didn’t know what it would be. It’s like tap water, so we could see it was a big fish 20 or 30yds out, but it was hard to tell if it was that fish.”
The fish went through Nigel’s other two lines on its way in, but was eventually netted by Richard and witnessed by fellow anglers Alan Smith and William Woodfield.
“It didn’t quite hit us when we saw him in the net,” said Nigel. “I’ve seen pics of the fish and I knew he had a big set of shoulders on him, but I wasn’t sure.
“I said to Richard, ‘I don’t know if it is or not’, but we realised when we lifted him into the sling in the water – that was a real struggle and it took two of us.”
Nigel, who regularly fishes in France and had a UK pb of 35lb 6oz, had bought a pair of 120lb Reuben Heaton scales a fortnight before and they pulled round to 68lb 8oz.
When asked whether he would claim the record, he said: “For me, it’s a fish of a lifetime and I think I will claim it.
“It’s an Israeli strain of fish and a lot of people don’t really treat it as a British record. I think it went in the lake at 39lb, and you’re always going to get people saying it’s not a true British fish, but I think I probably will do that [submit a record claim].”
The British Record Fish Committee would have to consider the claim after the scales had been checked. The BRFC has previously rejected a claim for the mirror known as Big Rig, which topped 71lb 4oz, because it had been ‘grown under an artificial feeding regime to a weight close to or exceeding the species record’. Big Rig died this summer.