Matt's 49lb carp comes out of the blue

Matt Timmins, from West Bromwich, was on an average weekendâ??s angling trip to a lake called the Avenue in Burnhill Green near Wolverhampton, when he got the bite.

He had been on the lake for around four hours, and had even changed the area he was fishing before he landed the biggest catch of his life - known as Ellie. The 29-year-old, from Schofield Avenue, said: "??If I'??m honest I was actually watching a film on my iPad at the time - Wolverine.

"??The fishing was pretty slow really - it normally is in the winter -?? and this just came out of the blue. There's a sunken island that runs the length of the lake, known as the bar, and that's a good place to fish as they like generally to hang around there, so I had started fishing there. Then my electric alarm went off to tell me I had a fish on the line."

Matt struggled with the common carp for a few minutes, steering it away from some reeds, before he saw it for the first time when it rolled near the surface of the water.

"It was massive,"? he said.

"??That was when I started to get jelly legs, I kept playing it but more carefully then because I didn'??t want to lose it. The adrenaline was pumping, and some of the others there on that day had come around the lake to have a look."?

 When Ellie was eventually puled out of the lake the anglers put her onto the scales -?? and were shocked at her 49lb 9oz weight.

Matt added: "It was probably about 20lbs more than what I had caught before, about twice the size. I couldn'??t believe it, I knew it was a big fish looking at it but then I saw it on the scales - I just couldn't believe it."

It also turned out to be the biggest common carp ever caught in the lake, and the biggest size Ellie had ever been, having been landed previously and named by other anglers.

Since his catch last month Matt has featured in a number of angling news articles, and has even been stopped in the street by fellow fishermen who want to congratulate him.

He said: "??Everyone is supposed to get their 15 minutes of fame, so among the angling world this is my 15 minutes."

It was the second record-breaking fish to be caught at the lake last month following the landing of Tarka, who weighed just five pounds less than Ellie.