Charity Lakes heavyweight beats its own best to set the county bar even higher.


The Norfolk carp record has been beaten with a fish of 52lb.

Caught by Richie Lofthouse from Charity Lakes near Lenwade, the big specimen known as Baby Face breaks its own previous record by 6oz.

Essex-based Richie has been targeting the fish at the syndicate water since April, coming agonizingly close to banking her last month after a hook pull. But this time he made it count, using the recent heat wave to catch the biggy - and a new pb for the 28-year-old - off the surface.

“I went up for the weekend and ended up having to set up in the dark on the Friday night,” Korda and Trakker-backed Richie told Total Carp. “The next morning I woke up and it was blazing hot, so I moved down to the shallows and got some fish feeding. I had 11 fish using Mainline Cell, but then got the fish feeding on the surface.”

Amongst the fish that started taking floaters was Richie’s target fish, but getting her to feed and getting her on the hook were two different things.

“As the biggest fish in the lake by some way you can tell when Baby Face is in front of you. Her back’s massive. The trouble was she was very cagey about dog biscuits, I think people have been trying to take her off the surface all summer.

“I tried bread though and she just lapped it up. I even had to pop down to the local Tescos at one point to buy some more.”

It took all weekend, but finally the 52pounder fell for the bait, presented on a controller set up to a size 6 widegape hook and a 9lb Guru hooklink, on the Sunday - but Richie’s problems weren’t over yet.

“She weeded me up so badly that I needed to go out on the boat to free her. Luckily the thick blanket weed calmed her down and I managed to hand-line her up to the surface and netted her with the weed as well.

“When I got her on the scales and found out she beat her previous best weight I was buzzing,” continued Richie. “She also beats my previous best by 5lb.”

Richie beat his fish, his ninth different UK carp over 40lb using a 3lbtc DF Longbow rod, a Daiwa 22600 reel and 15lb Subline mainline.