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New Anker record

Thanks Andy . I would be very interested to know what the process is , and yes I think we should be grateful to Dave and latterly Rob and Ray for volunteering to do this . It is good to have river records , if only for interest , or something to aim at if that's what floats your boat
 
Photos taken by different cameras and lenses, and also the way anglers hold fish can be deceptive to the eye, as is the size of anglers holding fish! Some look too big or small for the weight stated! You have to do research on the capture/weight history of a particular fish and then scrutinise scale patterns and markings, fin shapes, eyes, barbels, and ID markings etc. etc. Identifying a particular re-captured fish is sometimes very easy, but sometimes not so easy, because of the gap between captures which can be years. With this, the ID marks such as re-generated scales, warts, fin erosion and re-generation, weight fluctuation and length and girth size and so on, can change and heal. When I first saw the pic of the fish, first impression was that I thought it was not as heavy as the stated weight. Photos can be deceptive as stated above!
Looking closer, it is a known fish with a track record of nearing the stated weight when previously caught. The weight fluctuation process through summer and winter can be great or small depending on each individual fish! There are other factors also that help us come to conclusions such as contacting the witnesses and captor for questioning and the story of the captor/capture. All this is done to keep the river record list as accurate as possible, and is done on a voluntary basis which takes time and at our own expense. Originally, the list was initiated and undertaken by Brian Dowling who has since retired from doing so. In more recent times, Dave Mason and Rob Swindells have been the core of this, doing most of the direct investigations, with me as an advisory capacity if problems in identification arise. Hope this puts a bit of light on this as it is essential to keep the list going.
 
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Well hopefully Adrian, Ray's very informative response will assuage your doubts . Thanks Ray for taking the time to explain in such detail , very interesting , it has certainly answerd all my questions . I have admiration for those willing to give up much time and effort to maintain these river records .
 
For those that doubt the weight, there's also a picture of it when Phil Smith captured the fish back in January this year (in the 'history' link). I'm not suggesting this proves anything, though it looks like a big fish in Phil's photo. As previously mentioned, there are so many variables at play with fish photography that weight-guessing is subjective, at best.

Thanks to Dave, Rob and Ray for taking the time to record and investigate claims.
 
Mike Hodgkiss said:
Well hopefully Adrian, Ray's very informative response will assuage your doubts . Thanks Ray for taking the time to explain in such detail , very interesting , it has certainly answerd all my questions . I have admiration for those willing to give up much time and effort to maintain these river records .
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I would be happy to be proven wrong but tbh I still don't see it. Being someone who can't recognise my own daughter when I see her out with her mates the fish recognition thing fascinates me, would it be possible to put side by side pictures up with arrows or circles round the points of similarity showing it to be the same fish which Phil Smith had?
 
I'm not altogether sure it really matters does it? As has been stated earlier bigger fish get caught from stretches frequently and go unclaimed. Admin do there best to determine the truth of the situation and past that the only people who moan are the ones who haven't caught a record fish and should they, would weigh it to the best of their abilities. So it seems to me a whole lot of fuss about nothing - its not like there is a cash prize for catching a river record just your own pride and integrity at stake, if people want to gamble that then so be it.
 
Adrian Williams said:
would it be possible to put side by side pictures up with arrows or circles round the points of similarity showing it to be the same fish which Phil Smith had?
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yes:

andrew-boyne-albums-ribble-barbel-picture4129-4f227b37bcbf7%5B1%5D.jpg


4f227b37bcbf7[1].jpg

Looks the same fish to me . . . .
 
I couldn't have put it better myself Andrew - thank you.
 
Well I'm still not convinced, to me the scale patterns look different, the tail damage is different on both fish and the dorsal fins are not clear enough on either fish to show anything.

On the other hand I've met Phil Smith several times and know that as well as not being a big bloke he also has small hands, I've never met the other guy and for all I know he could be a giant with hands like JCB buckets.
 
Andy Frances said:
I couldn't have put it better myself Andrew - thank you.
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Don't mention it Andy! To be honest - it's not the best comparison as Phil is holding the fish tilted back slightly, John is holding it slightly forwards so the reflection on the scales looks different. The tail and dorsal fin, however, are a dead give away.

There was a thread on here recently about what got us into barbel fishing and on it i didn't mention 'Quest for Barbel' the Miles and West classic - in it is a chapter titled ' The importance of recognising individual fish' - well worth a read. ;)
 
Adrian Williams said:
Well I'm still not convinced, to me the scale patterns look different, the tail damage is different on both fish and the dorsal fins are not clear enough on either fish to show anything.

On the other hand I've met Phil Smith several times and know that as well as not being a big bloke he also has small hands, I've never met the other guy and for all I know he could be a giant with hands like JCB buckets.
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What about this pic then? BFW Gallery

Other side of the same fish - tail and dorsal match! ;)
 
Adrian Williams said:
Perhaps I'm suffering from some sort of prosopagnosia.
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Quite possibly, seems to be a very common condition amongst barbel anglers! :D John obviously recognised his fish as a repeat capture and a quick look at the BFW gallery suggests a very small population of big barbel present - that particular fish appears 3 times as does a 12lb'er - again the same fish caught on 3 different occasions ( the lower tail lobe being the obvious point of reference for that fish ) and that's about it for the Anker. Thankfully only one page to look through!

The problems start when anglers fail to recognise individual fish either through suffering prosopagnosia or plain bloody ignorance. You then end up with a situation where a section of river get's hammered to death by people fishing with the belief that it is full of big barbel when the reality is it's probably just one or two fish caught over and over again. As long as people realise it's the same fish, there isn't usually a problem. Take the Anker for example, now, i like catching big barbel and had i been suffering prosopagnosia while looking at the gallery i might be of the belief that there are at least three 15lb'ers and 3 12lb'ers to have a go at. Well worth a visit even if it's a long drive from Lancashire! Knowing that there's only one really big fish makes it less appealing - so much so that i won't bother.

In my opinion it would be best practice to identify a repeat capture as such if you intend to inform others of your capture - pictures on forum galleries with captions like 'another 12lb'er' and 'river X double 12lb 4oz' 'river X 12lb 12oz' can be very misleading to the uninformed. If those pictures had the title 'an old friend' it would send out that the message that there isn't an endless supply of big fish. The question then is how many times would you submit a picture of the same fish? There is nothing wrong with repeats, you can only catch what's there at the end of the day, but is the capture of a particular fish for the 8th or 9th time something to be celebrated? If it's a new record then perhaps yes, if not, then probably not. Just my opinion.

I bet there's a few people in my local area getting twitchy typing fingers as they read that and it would be a shame if this thread goes pear shaped ( cough ) so i'll leave it there.
 
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