“Looking down in the net I could see this was big eel..”

50 year old specialist specimen angler Paul Faint from Waltham Abbey landed himself a new personal best in the shape of this 7lb 3oz eel after a run of several good eels taken whilst targeting them since the lock down was lifted. Targeting a large southern gravel pit on a 48 hrs session saw him land other eels of 2lb and 5lb 7oz with the PB being landed just before first light on the second day.

Paul told us “All the eels were taken on a maggot feeder rig filled with chopped worms with my chosen hookbait being two lobworms on size 8 hook with 5″ of 20lb amnesia as hooklink material. After finding a small gravel plateux surrounded by weed in 12ft of water I deposited a light scattering of dead maggot, chopped worm and sardine.

First was the small eel followed by a few dropped takes and a missed bite, then at 4.00am as the light was starting to show the alarms screamed a one toner which after an epic battle resulted in this lovely eel as it graced the net.

Looking down in the net I could see this was big eel, when I lifted it onto the unhooking mat I knew then that is was a new PB and the scales recorded a new PB of 7lb 3oz.

With the adrenaline still running high after a few hours’ sleep the rods were put back out, this resulted in another take which was another eel, this time weighing in at 5lb 7oz.

No more action happened till 3am apart from a double figure bream when another take was had which was a good fish but this was lost to a hook pull