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Barbel and winter water feeding tempratures

To be honest the article seems to be a compilation of copy/pasted stuff that the author doesn't seem to properly understand. It doesn't matter how good the bait or additive is when fish aren't moving if it is not placed close enough upstream of the barbel, it won't be taken no matter what taste enhancers or stimulants are used. And it is no good casting a cloud of attractant that disperses top down as at best you are totally wasting your time and money. It needs to be a slow leach on the bottom for our purposes.

I use Frolicks dog biscuits at this time of year. Pet food is laced with appetite stimulants and the Frolicks are perfect for winter fishing as they leach flavour out for about 20 minutes before becoming washed out. That is plenty of time before requiring a new biscuit to be cast out in a new location. The other thing I use in winter are chicken pellets or layers pellets. These tiny 2mm x 3mm pellets again are laced with appetite enhancers, lodge in the bottom gravel and stones and dissolve to slush in about 15 to 20 minutes.
 
Clive Kenyon said:
I didn't know that silver sand was absorbent? Surely any liquid flavours or scents would be washed off it by the time it had got to the bottom so dispersing the scent trail well below the intended quarry. And, as Terry has already said; why not put the sponge inside the feeder, especially as the author is arguing against the benefits of loose feed?

For me, at this time of year it is all about the Kirsty & Phil approach; 'Location, Location, Location' :)
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Clive I guess sand is likely to be an adsorbent medium (a surface phenomena). Agree about the location.
 
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Ady Brayshaw said:
Clive I guess sand is likely to be an adsorbent medium (a surface phenomena). Agree about the location.
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Ady, I think you mean that the additive sticks to the sand's surface? I appreciate that, but during its trip to the bottom of the river I would expect that most if not all the additive would have been washed off. I could see it working in a still water situation, but not where we would expect to find barbel.

The sponge trick is much better as the additive would be harder to displace from inside the sponge and therefore would act as a slow release.
 
I used to use sponge feeders (home made, as above), and they caught me some fish. I lost a fair few sponges though, through not securing them correctly. I now tend to use PVA bags much more than feeders, and use a 3-4" link-ledger arrangement (dropping ledger into bag and dampening/twisting top).
Since the first late 2020 flood I've dispensed with PVA bags and now pull the ledger link through a sponge, which is 1/3rd of a scourer-sponge. I pre-wet the sponge when I arrive, squeeze it out, then dunk it in glug. I've not caught much this winter so far but I'm pleased with the method.
 
Terry Simner said:
I used to use sponge feeders (home made, as above), and they caught me some fish. I lost a fair few sponges though, through not securing them correctly. I now tend to use PVA bags much more than feeders, and use a 3-4" link-ledger arrangement (dropping ledger into bag and dampening/twisting top).
Since the first late 2020 flood I've dispensed with PVA bags and now pull the ledger link through a sponge, which is 1/3rd of a scourer-sponge. I pre-wet the sponge when I arrive, squeeze it out, then dunk it in glug. I've not caught much this winter so far but I'm pleased with the method.
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Terry those particular feeders have plastic internal spikes that grip the sponge... you can just see it on the right hand feeder bottom right
 
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Clive Kenyon said:
Ady, I think you mean that the additive sticks to the sand's surface? I appreciate that, but during its trip to the bottom of the river I would expect that most if not all the additive would have been washed off. I could see it working in a still water situation, but not where we would expect to find barbel.

The sponge trick is much better as the additive would be harder to displace from inside the sponge and therefore would act as a slow release.
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Yes Clive the sponge is a good idea. Certainly better than using sand as a medium. I used to do a similar thing with sponge inside a slide film container with a weight , injected with fish oils for pike. Didn't do much good mind.
 
Richard Isaacs said:
Why can’t you just stuff the sponge in a black cap. It doesn’t have to be open ended to be effective and then the sponge always comes back. ............... I’d of thought that would be obvious 🤷🏻
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Because when you reel it in to replenish the glug you have to squeeze the water out before re-dunking it. If you try doing this with the sponge in-situ in a closed-end (e.g. black cap) then the sponge ends up stuck up the closed end of the feeder. So you end up having to take the sponge out of the feeder, squeeze it out, then put it back it the feeder ... every cast. It's a very messy faff. I used to use it in large diameter Fisky feeders, which had a much greater internal volume than blackcaps. With open ended it was a simple matter of squeezing the sponge in from both ends.
Yes, I initially tried the obvious, obviously ... but it wasn't a very good idea.
 
It’s a method I’ve not tried before but doesn’t sound too difficult to use with closed feeders. I’d just take it out and give it a squeeze between casts. At this time of year it’s not like we’re dragging in a fish every 10 minutes. In actual fact I’m not doing that any time of year.
 
Terry Simner said:
Because when you reel it in to replenish the glug you have to squeeze the water out before re-dunking it. If you try doing this with the sponge in-situ in a closed-end (e.g. black cap) then the sponge ends up stuck up the closed end of the feeder. So you end up having to take the sponge out of the feeder, squeeze it out, then put it back it the feeder ... every cast. It's a very messy faff. I used to use it in large diameter Fisky feeders, which had a much greater internal volume than blackcaps. With open ended it was a simple matter of squeezing the sponge in from both ends.
Yes, I initially tried the obvious, obviously ... but it wasn't a very good idea.
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i keep 3 feeders in a glug pot so just alternate them on every cast using a korda running clip so you are still fishing while squeezing out the water and putting the feeder back in the glug pot .. using this method with a block end feeder will be less of a faff ... might give them a go myself
 
This looks like a good cold water method (regardless of feeder choice) which I have never tried and its always good to change tactics, keeps it interesting and varied, does it really work better than a paste wrap or small feeder of pellets tho ?
 
Cliff Turner said:
This looks like a good cold water method (regardless of feeder choice) which I have never tried and its always good to change tactics, keeps it interesting and varied, does it really work better than a paste wrap or small feeder of pellets tho ?
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In combo with, IMO Cliff ... unless you're using meat 😂 Whether or not it helps is impossible to say, but it used to give me more confidence on a flooded Teme.
 
I my experience on winter barbeling is that barbel will feed at very low temperatures i.e. sub 5c, but what barbel are less inclined to do at low water temps is to move about and search out food stuffs , barbel during certain conditions will stay put and allow food items to come to them, many times I have fished in very cold conditions and one area of a swim would be unproductive and another area would produce a fish, in the early 90s myself and Mike Burdon pursued an idea regarding and invisible grid system that applied it to many swims and documented them, mainly on the lower Severn, we built a picture up of particular swims where during low water temps barbel not move to a bait or a baiting up process , however relocating the bait to another area on the grid could result in an immediate take, we marked this on the grid....so it resulted in a belief that to be successful in low temps, you had to thoroughly search a swim out, in other words go to the barbel dont wait for the barbel to move to you...I think Ray Waltons famous snow shots on the Hants Avon endorsed this, those fish were taken not on static baits, they were taken on rolling meat through known holding areas, myself and Mike soon realised that the standard sit and wait tactics at sub 5c were pretty non productive but a bait bounced around a known holding area could and often did produce some large barbel...
 
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