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| Latest record — a hard earned two-pound roach |
Personal Best Coarse Fish
I rarely weighed my fish when I was young because a set of scales was an expense I simply could not afford, in fact the following list of fish is compiled mostly of specimens caught and catches made during the life of Idler's Quest, that is, since August 2008. The exceptions are Carp and Pike, both fish that were caught around 1979-80, weighed on other peoples scales and which have stood in the memory all that time.
I managed to clear the 40% mark a few years ago during one of our local blogger challenges. It spurred me to raise my game turning a measly 31% around by beating 8 records in a year. But now have to work much harder to improve if I'm ever to achieve the next target of 50%. That's very hard to do, and even the most successful specimen anglers will struggle to ever get past 70%...
Those figures highlighted in green are new records set this year. Only the one new overall record set so far for the main species...
But there's a hybrid too!
And you know how much I treasure them.
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BARBEL (Barbus barbus)
Best: 12 lb 4 oz - Warwickshire Avon, Lucy's Mill, Stratford Upon Avon - ledgered meat
This was a memorable capture. Fought hard and was trouble to net, but I got there in the end.
BLEAK (Alburnus alburnus)
2 oz individual, River Wye, Whitney on Wye - floatfished maggot
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BREAM (Common Bronze) (Abramis brama)
7 lb 1 oz. North Warwickshire gravel pit - ledgered sweetcorn
Terrible picture... I had the camera set up for flashless evening shots of something or another, had the ISO rating set really high and forgot to return to auto for this shot, hence the graininess and poor definition.
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BREAM (Silver) (Blicca bjoerkna)
Male - 1lb 5oz, Coventry Canal - float fished bread
This new female PB was caught along with another smaller fish covered in breeding tubercules, and therefore, a male. Up till then I never knew the difference, but with them both together, it was obvious. The male has a thinner, more compressed body and an upturned snout!
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BULLHEAD (Miller's Thumb) (Cottus gobio)
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CARP (King) (Cyprinus carpio)
The picture is a 15lb fish from same lake, same time - late 1970's
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CARP (Crucian) (Carassius carassius)
Best : 2lb 5oz, Marsh Farm, Surrey - float fished prawn
Top fish of a great day at Marsh Farm where I broke my record three times in succession and set a new tench record too.
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CHUB (Leuciscus cephalus)
5 lb 9 oz - Severn, Montford Bridge - ledgered halibut pellet/bread cocktail
Another phone picture and badly framed. A lovely fish that gave me stacks of trouble in a big snag but was banked and then weighed on the most unreliable set of scales I have ever possessed. I still think it was bigger than they said it was.
I ran comparative tests against my current sets recently. They all gave this fish a weight of 6lb 5oz! The record still stands till I break it.
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DACE (Leuciscus leuciscus)
It's hard to find large dace in Warwickshire but the Saxon Mill has thrown up ten-ouncers so you never know...
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EEL (Anguilla anguilla)
3 lb individual, Mersea Island - ledgered shrimp
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GUDGEON (Gobio gobio)
4 oz Wark's Avon, Saxon Mill (no picture) - float fished halibut pellet
The Saxon Mill gudgeon was simply enormous but I threw it back without weighing it so the weight is an estimate. However it was much longer than my hand - it could have been a British record for all I know...
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GOLDFISH (BROWN) (Carassius auratus auratus)
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GRAYLING (Thymallus thymallus)
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MINNOW (Phoxinus phoxinus)
An eye popping minnow with a body the size of my Swiss Army Knife.
Couldn't quite believe my eyes when she arrived in my hand.
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PERCH (Perca fluviatilis)
Best : 3 lb 2 oz - Blenheim Palace. Float fished lobworm.
PIKE (Esox lucius)
15 lb 12 oz - South Weald Park, South Weald. Ledgered sprat. 1979
The picture is of a more recent fish from the Coventry Canal just below the weight of the standing record. This was caught with a float fished slice of dead roach.
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ROACH (Rutilus rutilus)
2lb 3 oz - Lemington Lakes, Cotswolds. Float fished caster.
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RUDD (Scardinius erythrophthalmus)
1lb 0oz - The Crater, Exhall - float fished sweetcorn
Big rudd are extremely hard to find locally. This not a big rudd by any stretch of the imagination but its big for round these parts!
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RUFFE (Gymnocephalus cernuus)
> 3 oz - Coventry Canal, Longford - float fished maggot
Another monster tiddler. Not weighed, but Keith and I were astonished at the size of it.
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SALMON (Salmo salar)
A skinny 'kelt' - a fish returning to sea after a successful spawning.
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STICKLEBACK (3-spined) (Gasterosteus aculaeatus)
Not weighed, College pond, Basildon - float fished worm (that's a big claim for what was a matchstick tied to a length of cotton hung off a twig and no hook!)
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STURGEON (Acipenser oxyrinchus oxyrinchus)
2lb 8oz, approx (unweighed, unpictured) Weston Lawns, Bulkington. Float fished prawn
Fish pictured is a smaller specimen from the same fishery
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TENCH (Tinca tinca)
Female - 6lb 1oz, Marsh Farm, Godalming - float fished Prawn
Male - 4lb 10oz, Coton Hall - ledgered sweetcorn
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TROUT, BROWN (Salmo trutta)
Wild - 1lb 15oz, River Sence, Atherstone - ledgered breadflake
Stocked - 1lb 12oz, River Itchen, Southampton - trotted sweetcorn
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TROUT, SEA (Salmo trutta)
3 lb 15 oz, River Itchen, Southampton - trotted sweetcorn
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Trout, Rainbow (Oncorhynchus mykiss)
3lb 8oz, Hanningfield Reservoir, Essex. Lure
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ZANDER (Pikeperch) (Sander lucioperca)
11 lb 15 oz - Old Bury Hill Fishery, Dorking - float fished trout section
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HYBRIDS
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Roach x bream
2lb 7oz. Coventry Canal, Hawkesbury. Ledgered single maggot.
Caught in a torrential downpour they would not ease. A stunning fish but a terrible photo of it!
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13oz. Warwick Racecourse Reservoir. Float fished bread
An extremely rare specimen and the only one I know of of from this country. The lake was chock full of silver bream and all were perfectly normal bright silver fish except this one. This has bronze tinged scales and deep vermillion fins.
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Rudd x bream
A tremendous fight and a very rare fish indeed. Few caught in England. Most come from Ireland where they are relatively common captures.
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