The remarkable recent run of huge barbel catches shows no signs of stopping as specimen anglers continue to capitalise on one of the best autumns ever for the species.

Robin Cave upped his personal best by almost 4lb when he landed a 16lb 12oz cracker on his only bite of a session. He primed a swim for two consecutive nights prior to fishing, introducing a mix of 6mm halibut pellets and 20mm Frank N’ Indian boilies.

“I cast out at 4.30pm and at 8pm the rod smashed over. Straight away it felt very different to any barbel that I’d caught before – the power it had was immense and it just wouldn’t give up!” said Robin, who used a 20mm boilie wrapped in matching paste, with a PVA mesh bag of crumbed boilies and pellets nicked onto the hook.”