After a ‘once in a lifetime’ match, Tony Moreton weighed in a staggering 216lb 10oz of bream to claim a new match record on Britain’s longest river!
Fishing on the Severn at Upton, the well-liked river ace landed 44 fish over five hours to top Dave Harrell’s previous five-hour best of 213lb, caught back in 2011.
Tony drew the famous ‘Swan Steps’, in front of the Swan Hotel, opposite where Dave Harrell took his record over a decade ago.
The match was one of Jim Burton’s Prostate Screening Fund Qualifiers, in which funds and awareness were raised for prostate cancer screenings.
“Looking at the results of club matches in the run-up, it had fishing quite hard, but I knew that sometimes this area could hold a large shoal of bream,” Tony told us.
Kicking off with eight bait-up feeders filled with groundbait – Sonubaits black river and bream mixed 50/50 - and casters, Tony cast a groundbait feeder and triple maggot hookbait over the top.
“I didn’t have a bite for the first half hour and started feeding a bolo line with maggots, just in case I needed to catch a few roach,” Tony told us.
“But, 20 minutes after catching the first one, I had four bream in the net. I stopped feeding maggots at that point!”
Over the remaining hours, Tony added an extra 40 bream, with organiser Colin Harvey rushing along the bank to get him extra keepnets.
“By the end of the match I had four nets in, and it was my last fish that beat Dave’s record!” Tony added.
“Sometimes, the feeder would hit the bottom and there would be a fish there right away. If I didn’t get a bite in minutes, I recast. I’m so chuffed to hold the new record!”
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