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Are barbel the new carp?

It's a provocative statement made by old school so called barbel anglers to try and cheese of the so so called instants to barbelling.

I have been barbelling now for over 8 years & the first thing that amazed me was how easy barbel are to catch in numbers, very simple carp style methods that could be used & what fantastic sport they are.

Are barbel the new carp? Not for me. Are they are good alternative sport to carp that can be caught on more peaceful rivers where one rarely see's a soul beyond the first month of the season? Yes.

The bit which can frustrate some about barbel anglers taking the so called high ground calling one angling fraternity comparing to other especially re carp techniques that a significant chunk (or most commonly utilysed today?) of the present techniques & tackle used & talked about by most barbel anglers has been coined from the carp fraternity in one way or another.

Angling fraternities - they all call each other in one way or form. I think the more rounded an angler the better.

Cheers, Jon
 
When I go into my tackle shop the owners & their clientèle welcome me by saying

"Here comes the failed carp angler"

as they consider (& is probably true) that barbel are far easier to catch then the carp they fish for.

I love the banter & makes me laugh!
 
Actually, come to think of it, I have become a half-cast angler.

Ostracised by the carpers & shunned by the barbellers...

It's a lonely place to be... :D
 
Jon Whelan said:
Actually, come to think of it, I have become a half-cast angler.

Ostracised by the carpers & shunned by the barbellers...

It's a lonely place to be... :D
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The only place to be, Jon. I've managed to get myself shunned, feared and actively hated by sharp-elbowed Smart Set flyfishers, the tackle and international travel trades, the Mags, Rags and Meeja Men (I could go on - for the rest just read "everyone who believes themself to be someone in the permagrinning public face of fishing today, here and abroad), and do you know, I am not only proud of it, but am feeling damned good for all the incoming! Why? When inmates take over an asylum, you can have a couple of very differing outcomes: a) a breaking down of the "dope 'em to the eyeballs and shut up 'em", kettle-and-contain system and a better life for all concerned, or b) The maddest yet most lucid and plausible of the inmates becoming the new management and running the asylum purely for their own benefit and profit, and to hell with everybody else.

We have seen a lot of b) in Angling over the past couple of decades, so when someone (myself, in this case) merely said to them "Sorry, chaps, I'm having no part of this ... nothing personal, you understand, but...".
 
The Chairman on Tuesday


Oh, definitely, young Paul. As that excellent Plant chappie once observed in his Stairway To Something (what was it now, can't for the life of me remember) - "To be a rock, and not to roll.".


As ever,

B.B.
 
'Are Barbel the new Carp?' No. It seems to me though that Barbel have been the 'New Salmon' for quite a while judging by how seriously a lot of barbel anglers take themselves.
 
Paul Boote said:
The only place to be, Jon. I've managed to get myself shunned, feared and actively hated by sharp-elbowed Smart Set flyfishers, the tackle and international travel trades, the Mags, Rags and Meeja Men (I could go on - for the rest just read "everyone who believes themself to be someone in the permagrinning public face of fishing today, here and abroad), and do you know, I am not only proud of it, but am feeling damned good for all the incoming!
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Why is it always about you? You come across like a spoiled teenage girl, always blaming someone else for your lack of success.
Since you helped that nice Mr Wade write 'that book' the media men have wised up to you. If they thought you had anything worth listening to they would be beating a path to your door. The fact is, like most of us, you haven't, and other than being privileged enough to move in the right circles to enable you to blag your way into fishing some of the finest waters in the world thirty years ago you are a pretty average angler.
It's time you accepted that you missed your "tide" and as such are "bound in shallows and in miseries", (another quote there if you care to look it up). Do us all a favour and stop bleating about it.
 
Adrian Williams said:
Why is it always about you? You come across like a spoiled teenage girl, always blaming someone else for your lack of success.
Since you helped that nice Mr Wade write 'that book' the media men have wised up to you. If they thought you had anything worth listening to they would be beating a path to your door. The fact is, like most of us, you haven't, and other than being privileged enough to move in the right circles to enable you to blag your way into fishing some of the finest waters in the world thirty years ago you are a pretty average angler.
It's time you accepted that you missed your "tide" and as such are "bound in shallows and in miseries", (another quote there if you care to look it up). Do us all a favour and stop bleating about it.
Click to expand...



The Williams posting above only confirms what I wrote earlier about Angling - such a decent, worthwhile, personally satisfying pastime, good for an entire, quietly and well-lived life - being taken over by a quarrelsome, often truth-lite, often greedy minority and ruined for the majority who won't buy into such shoddy* stuff.


* Shoddy - the maggot-infested and faeces-caked wool from the rear end of a sheep that in the 19th and early 20th Centuries was used by the Yorkshire woollen industy to make cheap, shoddy clothing.
 
Yawn as much you like, Stuart, but I'm sure you'll be at the front, moaning loud and long, when your fishing suddenly goes sh1tty on you.
 
"Are barbel the new carp?"


Most definitely not!

If present in the same numbers (stocking density wise), barbel are far easier to locate and as a result, far easier to catch.
Widely accepted as a mug fish is old Barbus barbus.

And as touched on by Nick, barbel angling has a level of snobbery akin to that found in salmon fishing, if not more so.

Though I guess there are some similarities shared between the two genres of our sport:

Barbel - River Wye = Carp - Boddington reservoir
Barbel - Middle Severn = Carp - Clattercote reservoir
Barbel - River Trent = Carp - Drayton reservoir...........
 
I've never been one of the hard-core carpers, not since my glass Mk IV teens anyway, more of a floater fishing in summer kinda guy, but the advances made in fish-care, location and rig presentation by those who are is seriously impressive stuff. Some of it makes sense on rivers, some of it doesn't.

I may not want to join them, but I do admire them. Having a pop at them, as occasionally happens on here, is too easy and ignores the reality that many of them are very good anglers indeed.

The guys we've seen on rivers using over-the-top multi-rod macho gear may not be good barbel fishermen - but then they probably aren't especially good carpers either. The seriously-skilled carper, like the equally-adept matchman, usually finds barbel fishing a bit of a breeze.

Anyway, as everyone knows, perch are the new rock 'n' roll these days.

cheers

Jon
 
Jon Berry:

I've never been one of the hard-core carpers, not since my glass Mk IV teens anyway, more of a floater fishing in summer kinda guy, but the advances made in fish-care, location and rig presentation by those who are is seriously impressive stuff. Some of it makes sense on rivers, some of it doesn't.

I may not want to join them, but I do admire them.



Yes, I admire them, too. Pete Springate, always a "gent", with much "Respect" shown by each to the other, when we met at conferences and occasionally on his "little" bit of water that was just down the road from me, Wraysbury 1. Richie Macdonald, too. I must be one of the very few guys he'd bowl up to at a conference, say "You look effin' bored out your skull, mate - 'ave some of this", then produce a bottle of vodka from a very skinny jeans or jacket pocket. Also one of the very few he'd drink with at the bar afterwards and not have a bit of grief with. Then there was Kevin (not Maddocks)...

Yes. Admire and respect. Me them, them me. No poo-throwing.
 
''Are barbel the new carp?''

Only if you want them to be..............:):rolleyes:

10% will always catch 90%, whatever the target species. As said earlier, good carpers will undoubtedly make good barbel anglers.:)

We only have media whores to blame for whatever increase there is in barbel angling recently. Personally, i am looking forward to 'BarbTalk'......................like a second arsehole:rolleyes::)
 
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