He had the fish from his boat on a warm, sunny day, where there was hardly a ripple on the water. Fishing sardines on a paternoster rig, he’d caught a small jack just before lunchtime and had waited a few hours before his float slid away again.

Paul connected with a fish that was clearly no jack and battled the fish for around eight minutes before it came to his net. The fish is a PB, and although he has caught two other thirty pounders since he started pike fishing in 2009, he describes this specimen is the fish of his lifetime.

Well done Paul!