Lake Meadows regular Len Smith has taken the lake's biggest-ever carp haul by banking 17 fish in a 12-hour session.

Smith arrived at the park soon after the gates opened at 5pm, but spent nearly two hours looking for signs of feeding fish before deciding upon his swim at the Billericay lake.

Less than an hour after casting out Smith was into his first carp and he then began to catch fish at steady intervals.

At one stage during the afternoon the fish were coming so regularly that Smith had more than 30 people watching him.

Two of Smith's fish were relatively small specimens of 7lb or 8lb apiece, but nearly all of the rest were over 14lb.

The best specimen was a common of 21lb 12oz, while three others weighed over 19lb.

Stan Howard took a tremendous 158lb pole haul when he fished the western end of the island at Gloucester Park.

Howard fished a selection of bread, luncheon meat, sweetcorn and trout pellet baits to get a bite on nearly every put in at the Basildon venue.

Despite losing a number of good fish he finished the day having landed 98lb of carp, 54lb of bream, tench and crucians, and three barbel weighing well over 6lb between them.

Published Wednesday, April 23, 2003

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