Simon King
Senior Member
A mate of mine (we'll call him "R"), a good specimen angler, was on a well-known stretch of barbel river this morning. Settled into one of his favourite swims, he notices after a time that there are a fair few anglers along this stretch. In fact, there were no anglers anywhere else but up this end of the fishery.
Every man-jack of them was float-fishing.
One of them wandered over, looked at R legering and said "Won't catch nothing like that mate, you've got to float-fish if you want to catch the barbel here".
R pulls up his landing net from the water's edge and says, "So this doesn't count then?" exposing a 6lb barbel he's resting before returning.
"Oh, you were just lucky, that's all" says the bloke.
"Funny" R rejoins, "the more I fish, the luckier I get".
"You've got to fish fine with single maggot and have it moving....." says the bloke, "what strength line are you using?"
"10lb, " says R, "and 8 feet of it so the single maggot waves in the flow. It' does the job just as well and I can get it under any hanging branch or raft which you can't".
Needless to say, none of these float lads had caught anything and were regularly sending their floats down through R's swim too. He is not a man you want to P off.
Eventually he packed up and went to a different river for some peace and quiet where he phoned this tale through to me.
Anyhow, the point is this.
There seems to be an alarming trend of barbel anglers who, dare I say it, are seeing posts and pics of captures such as the esteemed Mr Speers, and blindly ape-ing the method without any thought as to whether they are skilled enough to be attempting it either from the point of view of getting the balance of their tackle right, or selecting swims with enough room for manouvre in playing a large fish, or considering the extended amount of time it can take to play a barbel to exhaustion before either landing it or, as I suspect will largely prevail, losing it.
Half a dozen barbules won't be the only thing trailing from their lips in the days, weeks and months ahead.
As the mantra was..................You can only catch on pellet.
Now is..................................You can only catch on a float.
With all due respect to those VERY few anglers capable of performing this feat (and I'm sure even they lose the odd fish, but of course, we don't get to see those pics
), am I alone in hearing alarm bells ringing in the background?
Every man-jack of them was float-fishing.
One of them wandered over, looked at R legering and said "Won't catch nothing like that mate, you've got to float-fish if you want to catch the barbel here".
R pulls up his landing net from the water's edge and says, "So this doesn't count then?" exposing a 6lb barbel he's resting before returning.
"Oh, you were just lucky, that's all" says the bloke.
"Funny" R rejoins, "the more I fish, the luckier I get".
"You've got to fish fine with single maggot and have it moving....." says the bloke, "what strength line are you using?"
"10lb, " says R, "and 8 feet of it so the single maggot waves in the flow. It' does the job just as well and I can get it under any hanging branch or raft which you can't".
Needless to say, none of these float lads had caught anything and were regularly sending their floats down through R's swim too. He is not a man you want to P off.
Eventually he packed up and went to a different river for some peace and quiet where he phoned this tale through to me.
Anyhow, the point is this.
There seems to be an alarming trend of barbel anglers who, dare I say it, are seeing posts and pics of captures such as the esteemed Mr Speers, and blindly ape-ing the method without any thought as to whether they are skilled enough to be attempting it either from the point of view of getting the balance of their tackle right, or selecting swims with enough room for manouvre in playing a large fish, or considering the extended amount of time it can take to play a barbel to exhaustion before either landing it or, as I suspect will largely prevail, losing it.
Half a dozen barbules won't be the only thing trailing from their lips in the days, weeks and months ahead.
As the mantra was..................You can only catch on pellet.
Now is..................................You can only catch on a float.
With all due respect to those VERY few anglers capable of performing this feat (and I'm sure even they lose the odd fish, but of course, we don't get to see those pics
), am I alone in hearing alarm bells ringing in the background?
