ONE of the longest-standing coarse fish records has finally been beaten - and it's also one of the smallest!
Mat Faulkner obliterated the three-spined stickleback record with this 9 gr mini marvel.
It smashed the official British stickleback record of 4 drams set by mini species ace Dennis Flack at High Flyer Lake in Cambridgeshire way back in 1998.
Mat didn’t even realise the significance of his own fish until pal Jack Perks pointed out the catch – equating to 5.0794 drams – was a whopper.
Nottingham-based Mat explained: “I was just general float fishing with maggot on one of the local ponds.
“I have caught them this size before but it was Jack that pointed out the actual significance of the size as I showed him it.
“I knew it was big but he suggested I weigh it.
“So I popped home and got the kitchen scales and it came in at 9 gr, which is just over the weight of a one pound coin.
“I’ll look to claim it officially so just need to see if it can be verified,” added Mat, who is general manager at MF Aquatics.
Record stickleback to be caught on film?
The three-spined is one of three UK stickleback species. Award-winning underwater film-maker Jack Perks now hopes to capture this record stickleback in its natural environment.
Jack revealed: “I was fishing for carp with a fly rod at the time (of Mat’s record stickleback catch).
“I’m sure there’s bigger ones in there as that was a female who was spawned out so she would of weighed more a couple weeks ago.
“Sadly it’s very murky but does clear up in the winter so maybe I will chuck a camera in then to see if I can find one that’s even bigger.”
Mat Faulkner safely returns the record stickleback.
Jack added: “I love sticklebacks and that’s why I’ve got one on the front of my fish book Freshwater Fishes Of Britain.
“I think most anglers can trace themselves back to jam jars and nets with sticklebacks.
“The stickleback I filmed for Springwatch was called ‘Spineless Si’ though he’s dwarfed by this one, which is more like ‘Spiny Spartacus’.
“The smallest freshwater fish in Britain is the nine-spined stickleback only reaching a couple of cm and there are good numbers of them on my local River Trent.
“And then there’s the 15-spined stickleback which is a marine species getting up to 25 cm,” concluded Jack.
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