Dean Fletcher: Angler who has claimed a UK record for hauling the heaviest carp

Nothing’s too much trouble for Dean Fletcher

Dean Fletcher

Looks like he’s going to need a bigger boat…

Nothing’s too much trouble for Dean Fletcher, who has had his eye on this mammoth fish for three years. The determined fisherman finally triumphed by hooking this super-sized catch and has claimed a UK record for hauling in the heaviest carp.

That’ll see him through a few fish suppers…

It evaded him for years but Mr Fletcher, 53, from Wokingham, Berkshire, finally landed the carp, which weighed in at the 68lb 1oz, last Wednesday [13 JAN]. He said he caught the creature within an hour of sticking his rod into Cranwells Lake in Wasing.

You could say he fell for the trap hook, line and sinker…

“When it went into the net and I saw which fish it was I was leaping all over the bank,” Mr Fletcher told the BBC. The enormous fish is known as “the parrot” due to the shape of its mouth.

Has he ended up on a plate somewhere yet?

No, after being weighed, the fish was released back into the water. Its vital statistics will be sent over to the Angling Trust for verification. The current UK carp record stands at 67lb 8oz and was set by Austin Holness, in Kent in 2008.

Is Mr Fletcher confident he’ll claim the title?

It’s all but official now. The angler, who makes his living as a greengrocer, was in jubilant spirits. “I'd been after this fish for three years,” he said. “It's all I ever talked about – it had become a bit of an obsession.”

Should I be worried about a giant carps taking over our waters?

The heaviest carp recorded tipped the scales at over 105 pounds in Hungary last year. The common carp is native to Asia but has been introduced into environments worldwide, and is often considered an invasive species. However, the fish has been championed by many anglers over the years. Izaak Walton, a 17th-century writer, described it as the “queen of rivers” in The Compleat Angler, a publication celebrating the art and spirit of fishing in prose and verse.