Richard Hamlyn
No Longer a Member
I know there are those here who believe I already know everything, but that is patently not true (well, not yet anyway) so I would like to seek advice from people who may have encountered a similar problem as myself when fishing for Barbel.
As I live in the South West my options for Barbel fishing are limited to trips away to the river and a more local still water. The river I have access to is wide, deep (12’+) and very slow moving. In the summer the flow is not dissimilar to the still water which is much shallower and windblown and therefore subject to quite a strong tow. I need as much weight to fish the lake as I do to hold bottom on the river on many occasions. The problem I have is trying to figure out how to feed the fish to the best effect on the river. I know what follows may seem illogical but I can assure you it is the truth as several of my mates who fish the same stretch have had the same experience. If you cast out a feeder or PVA mesh or stringer with a few boilies in it just about anywhere in the river and wait for ½ hour or so then there is a very good chance the rod will go over and you will be into a fish of around 8lbs or so. At the time of casting it feels all wrong because there is this large expanse (and I mean miles) of featureless (on the surface anyway) water in front of me and you get the feeling that to plonk it anywhere near a fish will require a considerable amount of luck as the stretch has a good but not massive head of Barbel. However this is not the case, and if a bite does not develop in about 45 mins then chucking it within 30’ or so from the first cast or generally searching around the swim will invariably produce a response. My reaction to this situation was to introduce a reasonably concentrated bed of feed into the swim with a dropper and to wait for the fish to find it and start to feed with confidence with the view of catching multiple fish rather than one at a time and then searching around the river for the next one. To this end I have introduced beds of hemp / casters / pellets / crushed boilies and vitalin in various combinations and locations but the result has always been the same……not a sausage. Not only that but the stretch contains a huge head of big bream and the same thing happens with them. In fact you get the feeling that the sight of a bed of feed actually scares them and this is on a stretch of river where the angling pressure is almost zero. As soon as you go back to isolated pocket of food in the bag or feeder over goes the rod again. The very opposite happens on the still water. I may have to wade through loads of Bream Carp and Tench while I wait for the Barbel to arrive, but once that has happened they invariably push the other fish out of the swim and I can catch Barbel one after another. Once again this experience is mirrored by other angles on the water. The fish themselves are all in terrific condition and at the end of the day all swim away strongly, even the ones on the still water which get caught far more regularly than the ones in the river. In fact I’m sure that many of the river fish are being hooked for the first time in their lives. Given that they are the same species can anyone please throw some light as to why they seem to behave so differently?
Richard
As I live in the South West my options for Barbel fishing are limited to trips away to the river and a more local still water. The river I have access to is wide, deep (12’+) and very slow moving. In the summer the flow is not dissimilar to the still water which is much shallower and windblown and therefore subject to quite a strong tow. I need as much weight to fish the lake as I do to hold bottom on the river on many occasions. The problem I have is trying to figure out how to feed the fish to the best effect on the river. I know what follows may seem illogical but I can assure you it is the truth as several of my mates who fish the same stretch have had the same experience. If you cast out a feeder or PVA mesh or stringer with a few boilies in it just about anywhere in the river and wait for ½ hour or so then there is a very good chance the rod will go over and you will be into a fish of around 8lbs or so. At the time of casting it feels all wrong because there is this large expanse (and I mean miles) of featureless (on the surface anyway) water in front of me and you get the feeling that to plonk it anywhere near a fish will require a considerable amount of luck as the stretch has a good but not massive head of Barbel. However this is not the case, and if a bite does not develop in about 45 mins then chucking it within 30’ or so from the first cast or generally searching around the swim will invariably produce a response. My reaction to this situation was to introduce a reasonably concentrated bed of feed into the swim with a dropper and to wait for the fish to find it and start to feed with confidence with the view of catching multiple fish rather than one at a time and then searching around the river for the next one. To this end I have introduced beds of hemp / casters / pellets / crushed boilies and vitalin in various combinations and locations but the result has always been the same……not a sausage. Not only that but the stretch contains a huge head of big bream and the same thing happens with them. In fact you get the feeling that the sight of a bed of feed actually scares them and this is on a stretch of river where the angling pressure is almost zero. As soon as you go back to isolated pocket of food in the bag or feeder over goes the rod again. The very opposite happens on the still water. I may have to wade through loads of Bream Carp and Tench while I wait for the Barbel to arrive, but once that has happened they invariably push the other fish out of the swim and I can catch Barbel one after another. Once again this experience is mirrored by other angles on the water. The fish themselves are all in terrific condition and at the end of the day all swim away strongly, even the ones on the still water which get caught far more regularly than the ones in the river. In fact I’m sure that many of the river fish are being hooked for the first time in their lives. Given that they are the same species can anyone please throw some light as to why they seem to behave so differently?
Richard
