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Are Barbel the "new"carp ?

Cod fishing in the wee small hours of winter , not a beep beep anywhere , bliss, do use them elsewhere sometimes but turned right down. Still see myself as a sometimes slightly tooled up tench fisher, a good crucian caught on float during a early morning or dusk session would be just as good as the generic larger football with fins often sort after in the numerous carp puddles. A local lake has had to stop night fishing due the ineptness of a small minority, using the wrong gear loosing rods , and killing fish, the carp are mostly stunning dark commons , leathers miles away from the F1 cram em in the keep net match fodder .
 
There is a lot to be proud of in modern fishing. Predator rigs and tackle have overcome the barbarism of Victorian methods. Catch and Release is now accepted almost everywhere. Barbel anglers are rarely seen using keepnets and the mesh in nets is much more fish friendly.

However, in my opinion modern carp fishing is reversing that trend. Rigs and methods are designed for hooking fish whilst the angler is nowhere near their rods. Reading about some of the top anglers it seems that leaving rods out baited while they pop to the shop or have a session in the pub are quite normal. And the obsession with catching the named specimens has lead to fish being used purely as a commodity for prestige and profit. There is also the laddish / outlaw mentality along with the need for looking the part. Even out here where carp fishing is really in its infancy virtually every one has the same set up; four matching rods on a waist high rod pod and a baby bath set up all ready to poach the unlucky captures in water that has been stood out in the sun all day.

I do hope that this type of fishing does not transfer to the barbel scene. If it does at least there will be plenty of places where barbel anglers can get away from the circus purely based on the difficulties of accessing river banks with all the gear required to look the part.
 
Each to their own I say I do all types of barbel fishing be it stalking or fishing quiet rivers of fishing the Trent with buzzers ....if I go to the Trent for 24 hrs I want to fish through the night I also don’t want to die falling asleep at the wheel on the 100 mile drive home which is what would happen if I sat up all night so I use a bed chair and a Brolley ( if it’s raining) I also use a buzzer receiver so only I can hear my alarms
You could have a dig at any style of fishing personally I see no point in using cane rods when there is carbon in the world but would never criticise anyone that did and I certainly couldn’t be arsed drying them out if it has rained
And it’s amazing how many people use cane and centrepin and have a hair rig and modern rig components on the end
 
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I can well understand, the bemoaning of the waining of the more 'traditional' methods of pursuing barbel. However, the use of a bite alarm, is merely a more efficient extension of utilising an audible ratchet on a centre pin, or listening for the 'purr' of a baitrunner facility on a fixed spool reel. It is also a rod rest head. It is the thoughtless use of the bite alarm that understandably winds people up.
 
I use 1 rod on the ribble if I’m moving about or not,apparently I’m the butt of a few jokes as apparently I won’t catch with 1 you need 2 or more ,don’t use alarms I watch my tip,don’t have a bivvy and yes I fish a couple of hrs after dark and that’s it..keep everything simple watch the river and I will put my house on it that I will catch more with 1 rod than 2 in the wrong place or time..
 
Ady Brayshaw said:
I can well understand, the bemoaning of the waining of the more 'traditional' methods of pursuing barbel. However, the use of a bite alarm, is merely a more efficient extension of utilising an audible ratchet on a centre pin, or listening for the 'purr' of a baitrunner facility on a fixed spool reel. It is also a rod rest head. It is the thoughtless use of the bite alarm that understandably winds people up.
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Good try, I will give you that.;)
 
The current state of our rivers? Gin Palaces or just hired boats with pissed up crew crashing through without a thought for others, paddle boarders by the thousands, and Kyakers by the millions who whoop and holler at every weir and rapid, and don't forget the wild swimmers. Is it any wonder the fishing is poor?
Buzzers Bivvys and bedchairs brigade just add to the ambience.
 
Neil Smart said:
Buzzers Bivvys and bedchairs brigade just add to the ambience.
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They’ve been used on large rivers for overnight sessions for years and years. Why does it now pose a problem if they are used respectfully.
I’m 100% with Terry on this. I do all manner of barbel fishing from freelining for an hour on a tiny backwater to launching 6 oz across the tidal for 24hours and a fair bit in between.

I think the problem more often than not is a simple case of .............“there is only one way to catch barbel and anything else is too carpy”
 
Fishing the tidal T is obviously a whole lot different to fishing a chalk stream. Many believe the press reports, that anyone just turns up on the tidal T and hauls them in. Maybe true on swim one at Collingham Weir. Reading the river reports on the forum there seems to be a lot more 'quality' fish coming out of quite a few other rivers up and down the country at the moment. The Severn in particular.

There are so many differences to fishing the TT. You generally can't spot the fish for location nor watch their behaviour to certain baits. Certain stretches can be so busy, that baiting, and moving swims frequently to locate fish, is not always possible. I have never fished the Collingham stretch, but you don't have to fish there to catch fish regularly. There are quiet areas that you can fish well away from anyone else where you can have good sport. The size of the river lends itself to the sit and wait approach. Personally I generally don't use a bivvy unless I am there for two nights on the trot. Which is not that often. Then it's only for sleeping in when the rods are wound in at 1 am. I don't own a brolly. I use 2 rods on the TT until I start getting bites then I use only the one rod with a bite alarm at absolute minimum volume with the sensitivity on the lowest setting.
 
I’ve moved from the Loddon where I used to fish with a bedchair, two rods and a brolly to the Thames where I fish with a bedchair, two rods and a brolly.

If I lived locally then I would turn up at 8pm and use one rod, sit on a chair and head home to a nice warm bed at 1am. But I live miles away, can’t afford petrol of driving back and forth and I enjoy fishing difficult rivers these days.

I absolutely hate anyone else who fishes with a bedchair, two rods and a brolly anywhere near me though - idiots, haven’t they got homes to go to?
 
Richard Isaacs said:
I think the problem more often than not is a simple case of .............“there is only one way to catch barbel and anything else is too carpy”
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I live 100 metres away from Linear as the crow flies and I can't imagine people fishing there any other way than with alarms and bivies and it doesn't bother me a jot. I go there once in a blue moon and fish the margins for tench with a centrepin and float and have never been harassed or bothered.

In the 1990s I sat in bivies at night and had mugs of tea brewed for me by hardened carp anglers on the Thames. I wasn't fishing but it felt special and was damn exciting when an alarm did go off.

However, what really jars is when you arrive at a car park to fish a river and see a shoal of anglers having a chinwag and one of them says, 'Got to go my bleeper is going off in my pocket'; and proceeds to stroll along in a leisurely fashion to his peg. Then lifts one of his rattling and flapping rods from its pod and turns round and asks if I would net it for him.

FFS
 
Cant be too carpy on some small rivers you would catch buger all and end up with a hernia agree Clive pike gags were barbaric as were some of the massive trebles used, but the attitude as pike as vermin to be killed was insane, saw a beauty of a pike thrown down the grate at Coppers lake in Crofton years ago.
 
On the topic of using bite alarms. I made my first bite alarm as an electoronicw project when I was 14 at school and unless you’re holding a rod I’d always use them. You can look at the world around you and that’s 50% of why I go out and sit by a river.

It is true they allow you to continue to fish whilst asleep. I wouldnt ever set up my bedchair without being able to reach the rods instantly. I also know my brain is wired to make my body react before it bothers to tell my conscious brain whats happening. I sometimes ‘come to‘ playing a fish standing in the river.

i know on occassions I have fallen asleep watching youtubes fishing videos and I jump up when an alarm goes and find myself on the end of the bed before I realise I’m not actually fishing..

🤪
 
I can understand that some anglers think that barbel could be seen as the "new Carp" some anglers have adopted carp fishing methods to fish for barbel, even by introducing a new description of "Carbeling", I can see that this particular method of this type of barbel fishing is attractive to some anglers, barbel fishing of the past, in the olden days, was perceived to be a very private, and in some circles to be an elitist pastime of a one to one pursuit of a big fish, very few anglers were interested in catching any barbel, barbel anglers then were really only interested in the catching the elusive and exclusive double figured barbel, we now have anglers happy to catch any barbel via a process of elimination as they hope for a big fish and certain anglers follow a particular approach, matching rods, bait runners, alarms, bed chairs and bivvies, hence the carbeling tag, barbel fishing has become a much more social event, and this in itself, comes from within the development of carp fishing. The days are long gone (for some), of sitting in a remote swim, alone on a river holding the rod and touch ledgering a ball of sausage paste, in the hope of a monster barbel. The catalyst for the move to carp fishing methods for barbel was without doubt the development of the hair-rig and the self hooking bolt rig, it meant you could turn up, bait up, cast out, clip up, switch on and crawl into you sleeping bag and go to sleep and be woken up only when a fish hooked itself, very carp like to me.

But in answer to the original question:

No, barbel will never be the new carp, because barbel are in severe decline in all the rivers where they were either stocked as mature fish or as a indigenous species of that river, the aquacultured barbel resource will never be able to successfully keep barbel stocks at a particular level that they once were, because barbel grow too slow, and are very susceptible to most things that are out to kill them i.e. industrial pollution, chemical pollution, loss of habitat and more importantly Otter predation, whereas Carp have an whole industry surrounding and supporting their very existence, if I wanted to create a lake full of 30 and 40lb carp all I need is the lake and a load of cash, try creating a sustainable a barbel population in a river with just double figure barbel swimming in it.....impossible!

Within the next 10 years , barbel fishing be it with either cane and pin or with a tripod, baitrunners and alarms, will be a thing of the past as we know it now, I would hope there will always be some barbel around, but I think our rivers, we be full of chublets, roachlets, breamlets and waspy perch....
 
totally agree about the state of the rivers ,but alarms?, a friend of mine used to use his pins (sometimes) when barbeling, because the noise they made alerted him to a bite if he nodded off or whatever. Whats the difference? As for hair rigs and bolt rigs<some would argue its just a more efficient method of hooking fish, but you do not have to use them.
 
I caught my first barbel over 30 years ago on the Stour sight fishing and freelining. Switched over to the Avon later that week where there was a guy using a bolt rig, Dacron hook length with size 4 hooks, boilies and alarms back then.

The numbers of people fishing this way has increased, annoyingly, but it’s not new on reflection.

I can thoroughly recommend golf.
 
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