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Baiting/feeding strategy

R

Roger Pearman

Senior Member
I considered putting this in the Barbel basics forum but I’m keen to hear views on the following.

I’m fishing small southern rivers, with highly localised fish which see a reasonable amount of pressure (in the more accessible swims anyway). Assuming I am using a boilie (JB) and possibly pellet approach what are the possible theories on baiting / feeding strategies for what will likely be short 2-4 hour trips.

  1. Rely on the attraction of the boilie or pellet hookbair alone, possibly with the addition of a paste wrap. Seems too frugal especially for warmer weather.
  2. As above but with a PVA bag or stringer of either hookbait for sublety and minimum disturbance
  3. Meaty/fishmeal based groundbait purely for attraction and scent leading to the hookbait itself. Thinking about Sonubaits Salmon one or one of the Mainline pellet based groundbaits.
Most of the theory I have read seems to suggest not fishing directly into or on top of where the fish reside in normal conditions - so the groundbait approach makes sense as a signpost with the hookbait being the most obvious thing of nutritional value in the vicinity.

I could well be over-thinking this but it’s always good to hear opinions.
 
Great post & good question!

I think you’re right to question the ‘frugal’ nature of fishing a single hookbait - even with a higher attraction paste wrap. But if you’re confident there are fish in the vicinity, it could be a better option than baiting with a dropper/spopper, if your trips are limited to the shorter sessions you specify…

But, just to caveat that, I’ve had fish moving on to dropper baited areas and feed seemingly confidently within 15 mins.

Flow rate is another thing to consider, if you’re fishing faster runs with a finer gravel substrate, if you’re planning on putting bait out - unless you’re getting dense/heavier freebies on the deck, they’ll get washed down with the flow quicker than you’d imagine. Add feeding fish into the mix (even larger silvers or soldier Chub) and it’ll exacerbate this. Even larger pellets will take on water after a short underwater soak, become more buoyant and they’ll be off downstream. Possibly taking your quarry with them.

Unless you’re fishing in slacker water or can find a serious riverbed depression, I’d personally avoid groundbait altogether.

I’d go with a couple of carefully introduced (if possible) droppers of hemp and add some halved & quartered boilies mixed through, make that the first job upon arrival at your chosen swim. Rest it for as long as you can sit on your hands for, then gently introduce a rig and cross your fingers & toes.

I’ve also had some success when faced with similar ‘to bait or not to bait’ situations by using pellet or boilie hookbaits with a larger block end feeder loaded with pellets or chopped boilies that are too big to escape through the holes in the feeder. So it’s just leaching off scent to the only food particle a few feet down on a hair.

Don’t think there’s any textbook right or wrong answers here, just have to try a few different approaches and see what works.

Best of luck!
 
Hi Roger.
As said above, great post and great question. Your fishing sounds all too familiar to mine in both venue locations and quantities of fish available and for that very reason the responses are equally going to interest me too.

My reply based on mostly fishing the river nene is that I let the hook bait be the star of the show more often than not. I feed very little and sometimes nothing at all.
the reason I adopt this particular method is because I want to separate the hundreds of chub that out number the very few solitary barbel and I use their characteristics as different fish to do this.

It’s a method I’ve adopted and evolved and thought about carefully to basically give the barbel a chance of getting to the bait first despite the odds being absolutely stacked against them.

I go very big for a start. You would assume this would be attractive to everything in the river but believe me going huge is a big red flag to those intelligent chub and I’ve sat and watched them shy away from massive baits only to go and start picking up the crumbs. Barbel will smash and grab a bait the size of your fist with no thought about it but Chub are extremely hesitant to things that seem too good to be true until you get them competing for food which brings me on to the next step which is I don’t loose feed if I’m fishing for 1 bite.
I am hoping my water craft is good enough to put me onto a fish that is already there rather than draw a fish in (with maybe many others)

Finally I too use jb baits but I keep flavor levels so low and more often than not don’t use liquid flavors at all.
Thinking again about the difference between barbel and any other fish in the river. These are the ultimate search and rescue machines!

A barbel can find a single 8mm pellet in a river that has gone over its banks, with less than an inch of visibility and a flow rate powerful enough to bring trees down. …….

Why do we need to put out a pungent bait capable of attracting every chub Dace and bream in the river when we know the one fish we are trying to catch simply doesn’t need that level of scent to find your bait.

So in a nutshell most of my southern river low stock barbel fishing is done with solitary hook baits, huge in size and very low in flavour, put (hopefully) in the right place.
I know the theory works to good effect as I catch very few chub and bream in comparison to others and I do occasionally pick up the odd barbel on good days.
 
I’ve tried all three methods and still haven’t come to any conclusion, in fact I was fishing last night and read Richard’s post so tried a double 16mm boilie which almost instantly produced a nice chub ! 🤣 I’d had a small barbel on a single boille an hour earlier.
But for a 2-4 hour session I’d be inclined to to fish a single bait with 5-6 boilies crushed up in a PVA mesh bag , this is the method I’ve the most confidence in . I’m sure it gets a non feeding barbel into a feeding one ( sometimes) especially with a good HNV boilie.
Paste wrap can also work well , but for some reason I’ve not had much success with an HNV bait , off the shelf ready mades definitely.

I’ve tried the “ baiting pyramid” method lots of times and that doesn’t seem to make a difference either (for me) but it keeps the rod tip moving and my attention.

If you can try prebaiting , or at least put a few baits out after fishing , this definitely works with a good bait .
 
Keep em lean and keen . As I understand it the point of ground bait is to attract fish in to the swim and hopefully find the hook bait leading to you catching the fish or fish attracted by the ground bait . Too much ground bait or free offerings gives any fish around more choice ,therefore less chance of them eating your bait on the hook . Also lots of ground bait and free offerings will attract other species like chub or Bream . I never ground bait for Barbel , the most I will do is perhaps a small PVA bag filled with micro pellets it seems to work , sometimes ......
 
Always fascinating
I never fish with a big hook bait , but then I’m happy to catch what’s in front of me and I don’t catch fish the size that Rich does - so maybe something to consider?
I do fish pellet feeder plugged with groundbait and at the moment the barbel on out stretch seem to prefer small baits - single barbel blitz / single 10mm halibut or 2 x 8mm pellet Os and of course caster/ hemp and maggot
12mm dumbbells or boilies just not getting a response and the stretch is mainly deep and at the moment flow is slow
Regular introduction of small pellets seems far more effective than setting the trap with a boilie or meat…that is now
It can and does change quickly
A newbie fished on Sunday and had 8 barbel and similar amount of chub to over 6lb
I had a go last night using tactics that have worked for me for several seasons in a familiar peg and didn’t get a rattle in 5 hours??
I would wager he didn’t feed as much as I do? So maybe my default of get some mini-spoppers in , set the table, leave it as long as I can and then feed little and often has blown?
But that was my first blank this season, which is never a complete disaster as it stops things getting stale and takes you down a peg or two and gets you thinking.
And it was a glorious Monday evening😊
So I don’t think there is a right and wrong way, but you’ll certainly get some ideas from members and working out which works will only come from rod hours
Good luck
 
Roger Pearman said:
I considered putting this in the Barbel basics forum but I’m keen to hear views on the following.

I’m fishing small southern rivers, with highly localised fish which see a reasonable amount of pressure (in the more accessible swims anyway). Assuming I am using a boilie (JB) and possibly pellet approach what are the possible theories on baiting / feeding strategies for what will likely be short 2-4 hour trips.

  1. Rely on the attraction of the boilie or pellet hookbair alone, possibly with the addition of a paste wrap. Seems too frugal especially for warmer weather.
  2. As above but with a PVA bag or stringer of either hookbait for sublety and minimum disturbance
  3. Meaty/fishmeal based groundbait purely for attraction and scent leading to the hookbait itself. Thinking about Sonubaits Salmon one or one of the Mainline pellet based groundbaits.
Most of the theory I have read seems to suggest not fishing directly into or on top of where the fish reside in normal conditions - so the groundbait approach makes sense as a signpost with the hookbait being the most obvious thing of nutritional value in the vicinity.

I could well be over-thinking this but it’s always good to hear opinions.
Click to expand...
Roger, it sounds as though you are on the same rivers as me🥹, well similar ones . I did used to find the best results in the past, when numbers of fish were there; hemp and caster or mini (400 cubes to a tin) was the way to go. But over the last three seasons even this has stopped working. As you said the fish are very localised, when they aren't moving between the holding areas; which they are doing almost daily. This means you may be sitting somewhere with no fish for hundred yards (if you are lucky); on one stretch I fish we have calculated that they have over 10 miles of free movement without weirs or other obstacles. All my captures (The few I have, only fishing short sessions totalling maybe only 200 hours for the complete season), have come to usually small finger nail sized baits and a four bait stringer. A couple did come to double 15mm boilie, but as a rule I suggest the smaller bait approach.

But , all in all, it must be stressed, that the method that will work for you, will be the one that gives you the most confidence. there is nothing like sitting there knowing it will happen, than thinking you are just going through the motions.... which is what is happening to me at the moment; stresses of life are weighing heavy and are distracting me from the game.

Anyway, good luck, wherever you are fishing; results will come.
 
Paul , I think you have hit the nail on the head there ,[use] ' the method that gives you most confidence '.Confidence is the key . Another observation I would make is this . Most of my Barbel fishing is done on the Yorkshire Ouse which is a big river . I have found over many years that ground baiting is usually counter productive in that it will attract Barbel in to your swim BUT it will also attract other species of fish , particularly Bream and small chub , these will compete with the Barbel and if a few Bream roll up they will push the Barbel out .
In the summer I occasionally fish in short evening fishing matches , I use ground bait in the matches for the sole reason that it attracts a wide variety of fish in to the swim , then its just a matter of winkling out as many fish as possible in the 3 hour duration of the match , the challenge then becomes choosing a set up that will give you a good chance of hooking and landing any bigger fish as well as the smaller ones . Its ironical that when in a match I pray that the Bream turn up , they often don't , I usually blame this on having a bad draw rather than my own ineptitude ! , yet when after the Barbel ,inevitably , even without ground bait , the Bream will sometimes make an unwelcome appearance .

Going back to the confidence thing . I still strongly believe that a very big , strong smelling bait , like a big lump of spam will sort out the bigger Barbel both in low and high water conditions , it's just that often , particularly in low conditions, you may have to sit it out for a while . Barbel are incredibly adept at finding a single large , high attractant bait even in the most atrocious flood conditions , I am talking here of 12ft + floods ,if they are there and feeding they will find that lump of Spam eventually . On many occasions I have sat it out on the Ouse for 3 hours + , nothing , then bang a Barbel , very often followed by others , they patrol up and down and in effect you are just waiting for them to arrive . This method does work on smaller rivers as well . All about confidence .
The only exception to this is in winter when temperatures are low it can sometimes pay to have a go with the maggot feeder . I have to thank Dave Maddison for this approach , he often does well in winter using this method , at first I was sceptical but on several occasions I had stuck it out with the big bait with no interest , switched to the maggot feeder with multiple maggots on a big hook and bingo almost instant success ! On one occasion last season I caught 6 Barbel , one after the other in quick succession after swopping to the maggot feeder after wasting the previous 3 hours with my bait and wait lump of Spam . I would add the caveat that the maggot feeder approach in summer will work for Barbel BUT you will get bothered by ' nuisance ' species as well .
 
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