JAMIE MARTIN was on a quest to catch his first 3 lb rudd… but the Ely, Cambridgeshire specimen all-rounder is still pinching himself after banking a colossal 4 lb 1 oz bar of gold!
Having witnessed rudd to 3 lb 4 oz landed at a Fenland lake during recent weeks, 28-year-old Jamie was fired up to beat his personal best of 2 lb 10 oz which he’d equalled on three separate occasions.
“I’d seen a lot of two-pounders and the occasional three-plusser caught by match anglers on the lake, so was determined to beat my PB,” said Jamie, who works at Willow Grange Tackle and Bait and was recently appointed Pike Anglers Club regional officer for Cambridgeshire.
Feeder and bread
“The take came at 4.30am on a bolt rig feeder filled with liquidized bread with a washed out pink mini dumbbell on a size 10 hook. The take was very aggressive and the fight was epic. I was sure I’d hooked a tench,” he continued.
“Then, as my fiancee was fetching the net, a bar of gold appeared at the surface and my knees went to jelly. Once in the net I looked at it and said; ‘finally, a three-pounder’.
“I let it recover before unhooking for weighing and photographs. A friend who has caught a couple of threes before came over from the next swim and said he’d never seen such a large rudd.
“The needle went round to rest on 4 lb 1 oz. My first thought was I’d done something wrong, so I returned it to the net, steadied myself, checked everything was zeroed correctly and that there was nothing in the sling, before reweighing with the same outcome,” he added.
Impressive PBs
All-rounder Jamie’s other PBs include perch of 4 lb 6 oz, pike 25 lb 10 oz, zander 13 lb, carp 38 lb 8 oz (lake) and 31 lb (river), tench 9 lb 2 oz, roach 2 lb 1 oz and crucian 2 lb 10 oz.
Jamie’s new PB is possibly the second biggest Fenland rudd ever following the controversial ‘record’ rudd caught in June 2012 from a Whittlesey AA drain in Cambridgeshire.
The 5 lb 2 oz rudd but couldn’t be officially claimed for lack of evidence – captor Adrian Cannon only had stepson Ollie Bottomley to witness it so got the nine-year-old to hold the fish in the picture with a wet towel but it was undeniably an unique and huge fish.
This is just a short version of the full story that appeared in Angler’s Mail printed magazine. Get the magazine every week for top tips, big news, best products, and venues that are in form.
CAUGHT A BIG FISH? Email photos and details exclusively to: anglersmail@timeinc.com – you could star in the magazine and win great prizes.