Angler Stanley King, aged 60, was dragged into the river Thames when a barbel took his bait, an inquest was told last week.
The barbel, weighing less than 4lb, bent the rod round and as Mr King grabbed for it the barbel pulled him off balance and dragged him into the river where he became entangled in the line of his second rod and drowned.
“An event such as this is very rare,” Coroner Peter Bedford told the inquest in Windsor, Berkshire and recorded a verdict of ‘accident’.
