CARP fishing newcomer Alex Court added more than three pounds to his previous personal best when he landed a cracking 20lb common carp at Basildon's Gloucester Park Lake.

Court was fishing with his brother Matt when he made contact with the fish from the cockle bank.

The big carp picked up a tutti fruitti boilie fished in the near margins before setting off on a strong initial run.

Several times during the fight Court got a glimpse of the fish, and knew it was bigger than his previous personal best long before it came to the net.

While Court was playing the fish brother Matt stood by with the net, only to have to rush off when a double figure mirror carp picked up his bait!

Spencer Cousins spent two days at the Gloucester Park cockle bank to land well over 300lb of carp, bream, tench, crucians and roach.

The catch came from the Eastern end of the stretch, falling to pole, waggler and quivertip tactics.

Spencer emptied his three keepnets at about three o'clock, returning over 70lb of roach, bream, tench and carp.

By the time he emptied them again in the early evening he had landed a further 156lb!

While Spencer was bagging up on the small to medium sized fish, pal Len Abery was targeting the bigger carp fishing boilies against the island.

This produced a number of double figure fish to a best of 17lb 8oz.

Carp angler Paul Reid took a tremendous 29 carp haul when he spent a day at the centre section of the Gloucester Park cockle bank.

Fishing ready made tutti fruitti boilies, he landed one fish after another and, on three occasions, had two carp on at once.

His catch included eight double figure fish to a best of 18lb 12oz.