Alfie Russel is no stranger to big fish but nothing could have quite prepared him for this 5lb 3oz specimen on a recent outing!

He told us “Perch are a species that I have had a love affair with for probably the past 8 years now and I’ve targeted them religiously for the last 6 winters. I have been lucky enough to find a few perch venues off the radar where specimens in excess of 4lb were quite common and in the past I’ve had red letter days of 3x 4lb’ers and 12 3’s in one evening from small crayfish filled waters! These crayfish are a main food source for quite a few venues and with very little angling pressure, the venue will quite often produce great specimens.

This particular venue was a southern Stillwater that I had been targeting with lures. Once I knew perch were present I returned and after my 6th session I landed a fish of a lifetime! 5lbs 3oz which was weighed on 2 sets of scales filmed and recorded which both gave the same weight.

I was fishing a small roach livebait ledger style and after a slow steady take I struck into the fish and instantly knew it was a good one, not much head shaking and my 1.5lb Drennan Twin Tip Duo hopped over! A dogged fight and she went into the net. I feel truly blessed to have seen a fish like that in my lifetime! Especially in such testing times due to Covid 19, it has made my year already

Being known for more of a carp angler, makes me feel pretty impressive to have caught such an amazing specimen of another species. But in fact a lot of people are not aware I fish for a lot of species I even was searching for a record gudgeon a few seasons back! And this all dates back to me winning the Fox specimen cup around ten years ago!”

If you haven’t seen the footage yet, head over to the Drennan YouTube channel and take a look!