Bob Mortimer has banked the biggest bream to be caught in the UK for a very long time in the shape of this magnificent 21-pounder from a north west mere.

The Stoke angler targeted the 90-acre venue with a pellet approach fished over a bar 60 yards from the bank. The mere is thought to contain only a few bream and this is the first to be caught there this season. The fish took a pellet hook bait at dawn.

The British bream record is a fish of 22lb 11oz caught in 2012 from Ferry Lagoon, a similarly sparsely stocked venue in Cambridgeshire, but Scot Crook.