70 year old John Hennessy landed himself a new pb barbel from Kings Weir in the shape of this stunning 17lb 8oz specimen.

He told us “I got down to Kings Weir around 9am and set up a few pegs down from the weir as I’d heard the bigger barbel were getting caught from the weir end so I wanted to get as close to it as possible. In the swim there’s a bit of an eddy followed by a crease so I decided that’s where I wanted to fish and cast out a running ledger rig with double 14mm boilies on the hair.

Every hour or so id chuck in a handful or pellets to keep the swim alive and active but despite having a couple of chub knocks, I’d not had anything by 2.30pm. At this time I made my third cast of the day and about 3pm I finally had a bite. Out of nowhere my rod just took off and just about flattened my rod rest, it was a good job I was holding onto the butt section with one hand at all times. Straight away the fish took off downstream before coming back in front of me, then going downstream again! I’d never experienced this with a barbel before. It gave me the feeling that id hooked something truly special but after 15 minutes I still hadn’t even seen it! A few minutes later it finally hit the surface and I got my first glimpse and I could see it was a big fish so took my time.

After two failed attempts at getting its head up and over the net, it finally went in on the third attempt but soon faced the task of lifting it out of the river! After popping her on the scales and them registering at 17lb 8oz I gave the house owner a ring to come and take some pictures before slipping her back. I was so full of adrenaline after catching such a great fish it took me a good 90 minutes to cast back out again as I was just gobsmacked by what had just happened!”