NICK SMASHES MIRROR MARK

HAUL RIGHT! Geoff Akroyd banked his biggest-ever barbel weighing 13lb 7oz from a stretch of the River Trent. The Stockport-based angler also lifted barbel to 12lb 10oz and 10lb 14oz with garlicflavoured boilies wrapped in paste NICK HEULLEUR has smashed the River Thames carp record with a 50lb 12oz mirror.

The history-making specimen was landed after a 40-minute battle. Heulleur, from London, concentrated on an area of the middle river that he’d been targeting for three months and baited with flavoured peanuts and boilies.

The bite came in the early hours of the morning after he presented a Snowman rig with a Sticky Baits Krill bottom bait beneath a Signature Squid pop-up. He used 20lb mainline with a size-5 Thinking Anglers Curve Point hook.

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DAN GALE banked the biggest roach of the season during a short evening session on a tidal stretch of the River Frome.

The Hampshire-based specialist proved you don’t have to hang around for hours to bag the biggest fish as he used a maggot feeder rig with an imitation maggot threaded onto a size 14 hook to tempt the

3lb 2oz specimen.

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A TRIO of big perch totalling more than

14lb was pulled from the Lee Valley by Matt Satkins, fishing his local water.

The biggest pulled the scales at around 5lb 6oz and was backed up with perch of 4lb 10oz and 4lb

1oz, which were all fooled with feeder-fished lobworms.

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ANDY HARMAN took almost an hour to land a colossal 380lb Mekong catfish when he enjoyed an angling trip of a lifetime to Thailand.