“After a 10 minute battle I was staring at a huge barbel..”

Brett Longthorne managed this new personal best barbel of 17lb 6oz from the tidal trent on a recent session.

Brett told us “I got to the river Friday afternoon and was happy to find the river was up slightly with some nice colour to it. I soon deposited 15 spoppers of particle and boilie into the river and then got set up for the night. Surprisingly it was very quiet with just the one bream late Saturday afternoon. I was contemplating a move but decided to stick to my guns which paid off massively in the end. 15 more spoppers went out on to the spots and at 8pm I received my first indication before the alarm screamed into life which resulted in a big barbel which took the scales round to 15lb 2oz. Then roughly an hour later the same road was off, and once again another good barbel of 13lb 10oz barbel was in the net. It quietened down a bit after that but at 1.30 in the morning my alarm was screaming once again, as soon as I picked the rod up I instantly knew it was a big fish from its deep powerful runs which was taking a lot of line. After a 10 minute battle I was starting at a huge barbel which was a new pb for me at 17lb 6oz. If that wasn’t enough the rod hadn’t even been out 10 minutes before it was off again with a slow run. This fish felt different and was very heavy in the flow, my first thought was a carp but when I saw a huge bream pop up I was blown away. At 14lb 11oz it was a huge bream for the river!”