As the seasons turn, Adam Riches often spends time targeting predators before the rivers have had a good flush through, and lately he’s been targeting pike on a Midlands venue.

Fishing a legered smelt to a drop off around 60 yards out, he’d landed a few smaller fish early in the morning.

At 10am, he received another take and walked down to the rod to set the hooks into what he expected to be another little pike.

However, when his strike was met with solid resistance, Adam immediately know that he’d hooked something substantial, with the fish going on to give a fantastic account of itself.

As he went to net the large pike, the spreader block on his landing net ‘exploded’, but thankfully a mate of his was fishing just down the bank, who was able to come and help land the fish.

The specimen weighed 33lb exactly and beats Adam’s previous PB by over 3lb.