There has certainly been a run of large specimen barbel from the Royalty recently with the best of the bunch being a sixteen pounder caught by Dave Treadwell. This fish won this weeks Drennan Cup award for Dave and is the largest reported Royalty barbel caught during August. This fish was one of a brace for Dave, the other fish was also a double weighing 11lb 4oz.
Dave has been in a rich vein of form on the Royalty this season having taken six doubles to 11lb 4oz in the last month before this latest capture put the icing on the cake.
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Darrel Hughes is another angler who has reason to be pleased with his recent trip to the Royalty, landing a beautiful barbel weighing 15lb 3oz from Telegraphs last week. This fish was hooked at last knockings when Darrel's rod tip warpped round in a powerful bite. Unfortunately there was no-one on hand to take the photo so he had to rush a self timer picture, which is a shame for such a great fish. Also if you look closely there was an incredible sunset going on behind him so whilst the fish didn't get away, a great photo opportunity did! This fish was Darrel's tenth from the Royalty recently and his second double.
Another angler who also broke the fifteen pound barrier was Dave Berry with a lovely fish of exactly 15lbs. Dave kindly came in to the shop and dropped off a photo which is reproduced below.
Royalty regular, Lord Jez Brown, came down with two of his henchmen Alan Jakes and Phil Plant and they shared a great evenings fishing with all three landing double figure barbel. Best of the bunch was a 13lb 8oz barbel which fell to the Lord B. (no doubt he demanded first choice of swim), followed by a 13lb 5oz barbel for Alan and a 10lb 9oz barbel for Planty. Needless to say they all had huge smiles on their faces when they came in for their tickets the following day. One thing that struck them all was the awesome length of Alan's fish, causing them all to speculate just how heavy this fish will weigh if it is taken at its heaviest weight later in the season.
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The smaller barbel are also still coming out but they have certainly become far more wary than they were earlier in the season and daytime sport with them is more patchy than it was, although those anglers staying to last knockings are being rewarded with some great sport.
Perch have also been showing well with a number of cracking examples being reported. I have managed to obtain a couple of great perch pictures, including Chris Carter with a three pound plus specimen from the House Pool and Lord Jez Brown with a two pound plus example from the Parlour.
With the end of the Summer holidays, the pressure on the Royalty has decreased and it is looking good for the coming weeks. It is raining as I type and the rivers could certainly do with a fresh influx of water, having suffered low flows for much of the Summer. Hopefully next weeks report will reflect the improving conditions.
