Stalking Success

By Mick Wood​

(Many thanks to the Barbel Catchers Club for submitting the article)

I have made the following observations whilst stalking barbel in clear, shallow water on Yorkshire’s River Wharfe but I suspect that the same will apply on many different rivers. The subject on the vibration that line causes, especially when rivers are carrying extra water has been discussed in the Barbel Catchers magazine “Barbus" and I would certainly not discount the impact that it can have. I still think though that a greater hindrance to catching barbel is where the line enters the water to the end rig as it can be seen quite clearly by the fish. Following a second summer spending countless hours observing feeding barbel, I have again noticed that when they are feeding hard in broad daylight, then line bites are extremely rare. Certainly so infrequent as to be out of all proportion to the number of fish present which on a couple of occasions was between 75 and 100 barbel! Then, when the light fades the line bites start and increase as time passes. Secondly I noticed that quite early on in the season that barbel would not approach a hookbait on a 15 hook length but as soon as I switched to a four foot hook length the problem ceased. The hookbait was still directly downstream of the end rig and therefore the barbel would still be able to pick up any line vibration and yet the long hook length definitely made a significant difference.

Early in the season when fish refused to approach the hookbait, I had also resorted to using a hook length of Shimano Aero which is finer than my Maxima main line and whilst this proved to be an excellent line it did not significantly affect the number of bites in the way the long hook length did. After a month, I simply fished 81b Maxima straight through in full confidence.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind after watching perhaps 100 barbel pick my hookbait up this past summer that the long hook length used to get the hookbait away from the mainline made a massive difference and as almost every single barbel picked up the bait and turned, I did not deep hook a single fish.

The next observation of use came about by accident. How many ‘stalkers’ have spent hours in vain trying to separate the biggest fish in a group before making the first cast? After all, we mustn’t spook the big one by catching a smaller fish must we? On one occasion I had around 20 moderate barbel and two better ones on my feed. As I was fishing between school runs, my time was limited and with no time for messing about, I decided to fish and hope but an interesting thing happened. Over the first three hours, I caught five barbel between 4 and 61bs. Then the group of moderate fish dispersed leaving only the two bigger fish between which I then caught in two casts ‑ 7.1 and 7.15. If we accept that barbel do not shoal in the true sense of the word, as say roach and bream do but merely congregate in favourable areas, then I believe that I had two separate groups of fish in one swim. Catching a few moderate fish caused the ‘moderate group’ to disperse leaving the seemingly undisturbed ‘bigger group’ behind. This observation was very soon to be a key one, even if my theory was wrong.

A couple of weeks later, a bloke I had bumped into told me of a group of fish in an area I had never fished that were ‘uncatchable’. During a short daytime session, I decided to put some hemp in the swim and leave it while I fished elsewhere. The swim did not allow me to do this because within seconds of putting a pint of hemp in a foot of water ten feet from the bank, I saw barbel emerging from the downstream willow. There were six fish and two at least looked as if they might be doubles. I watched in disbelief that two such fish were feeding avidly in front of me on a stretch where the club record had just gone to 9.11. They fed for about five minutes so I topped up the feed and they re-emerged but unfortunately so did a couple of dozen smaller fish." Bugger!" Then I recalled that earlier session and decided to go for it. Loose feeding hemp and corn, fishing corn on a size 10 Super Specialist to 81b Maxima and a four foot tail, I soon caught a couple of barbel of around 5‑61bs. Still the six big ones fed but my next three fish were all around the six pound mark. After about three hours and these five captures the moderate fish dispersed completely but only four of the six big ones remained, hanging a little further downstream than before. One of the two biggest was feeding in a very specific area between the edge of the willow and a large rock. This channel was barely 18" wide and being a little further out than the first area I had fed. I immediately started to have problems with dead blanket weed fouling my line. This problem was solved by means of a back lead eight feet up the line and since my mainline would be pinned to the riverbed, I reduced the hook length to 12", the long tail no longer being required. I cast out two grains of corn into the channel once the fish had gone and fired out some more hemp. The big one soon returned and started to feed hard. After what seemed like an eternity the barbel had still not taken my hookbait and I felt sure she was avoiding it. Then, with 15 minutes to packing up time the rod flew round and I was in the rarest of Yorkshire barbel angling predicaments, knowing for certain that I was attached to a double. The fish weighed 101bs 7oz, the result of thirteen years of effort and more than 1100 Wharfe barbel.