My Records

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.


Above is a table of my modest achievements since Aug 2008 on three types of water. The weight of my largest fish (of the 15 main British coarse species ) is expressed as a percentage of the current British record and the average of those figures is an indicator of my overall achievements thus far.

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.


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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)

Female - 1lb 6oz, Coventry Canal - Ledgered sweetcorn

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)

Not weighed. 9.5 cm length, 2.9 cm width - River Sowe, Coventry - Freelined worm.
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CARP (King) (Cyprinus carpio)

19 lb 12 oz, South Weald Park, South Weald - ledgered boily

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)

7.5 oz, Wark's Avon, Saxon Mill - ledgered bread

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)

2lb 1oz individual, Brookfields Fishery, Bedworth - float fished maggot

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GRAYLING (Thymallus thymallus)

1lb 8oz , River Itchen, Lower Itchen Fishery - trotted maggot

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MINNOW (Phoxinus phoxinus)

9 drams. 10.2 cm length - River Sowe, Coventry. Freelined worm

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.
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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)


3lb (approx) River Itchen, Southampton - trotted sweetcorn

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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Silver bream x rudd 


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


2lb 14oz. Coventry Canal, Hawkesbury. Float fished bread.

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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