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Barbel beginnings?

When I was a young we went on a family holiday to Bournemouth and my parents let me take some fishing tackle and I had a day ticket on The Royalty. I saw my first barbel caught by another angler and it was so different to anything I had seen before.

Up until then I had only caught the likes of bleak, dace, tench, crucians, perch, rudd and gudgeon from the local rivers, ponds and gravel pits in Essex.

I managed a few more trips to The Royalty in my late teens once I could drive myself there culminating in a red letter day when I had six in a day before vacating the swim to let the mate I went with move in and get a few more.

Thirty five years later I have taken up barbel fishing this summer having been inspired by a friend who had shown me photos of some doubles he had caught on the Nene near Peterborough. I have been fly fishing for some years but earlier this year developed tennis elbow so could not cast a fly rod.

Fourteen trips later I have averaged one per visit but no big ones yet and the spot my friend caught a number of doubles from over the past two seasons has been affected by a pollution incident.

I am totally hooked now and just sorry I cannot get out so much now due to dark evenings and colder weather. Roll on next summer.
 
Moving to Bridgnorth did it for me.

Reading the writings of Des Taylor and Matt Hayes pointed me to the middle Severn.
Saying that, I've come to realise that there is so much more to the middle Severn, and the Severn and its tributaries, than just Barbel......

Steve
 
It was Steve Williams' fault!

I'd recently got back into fishing after a break that must have been getting on for 20 years. I'd had a few days out on a stillwater with my cousin Tom, fishing for Pike and Roach. Tom gave me a call one day — his fellow coach in his kids footie team had offered to take us Barbel fishing one evening on the River Severn.

Well that football coach turned out to be Mr Williams and he took us out after training on a dark, chilly, November evening. We'd had a lot of rain and the river was a good 10 feet up, close to bursting, and mighty angry. We were travelling light and we worked our way along the stretch, with Steve explaining where the barbel would be, describing the underwater terrain, and helping us drop in the right place. The water temperature was perhaps a little low on the night and I blanked, but Tom managed a splasher.

Even though I didn't catch, it was the most exciting fishing I'd ever done! Being out there in the dark, feeling the force of the driving floodwater, knowing that somewhere in all that maelstrom there were big barbel, was a real thrill.

Tom and I went back again a few days later, and I caught this time — a fine barbel of 9lbs 12 oz, the most amazing fish I'd ever seen. And the fight! This was a decent fish in 10 feet of floodwater, so you can probably imagine.

So that was it, hooked. I've done a variety of barbel fishing since in a number of different rivers (I'm making my Kennet debut on Tuesday) and I love it all ... but my favourite is still floodwater fishing in the dark.
 
Fishing the Kennet at Burghfield Mill in the late 70s (long before they made it a housing estate !!) when all you needed was some cheese and luncheon meat - once I experienced my first 3' twitch and heard the Mitchell 300 clutch scream I was hooked.
 
Hi men,

Following Sue around when I wernt carp fishing . It clicked one day when we were up a tree watching barbel , trying to sort out how to catch them . Making a swim , getting stung , sweating , hanging onto a rope , we got the bait into a good position to watch them feed over it , and make a mistake !. When we got home I cancelled a trip to a good lake in France , and booked a week in a cottage . We bumbled around the Teme valley , and it was job done !.


Hatter
 
I caught my first barbel on the Severn in 1970 after hearing tales of these wonderful fish.i have not wet a line yet this season due to a mishap.some say at 85 I should have more sense.however I intend to get with the pace asp.is there anything better ?
Albert
 
I saw some under a bridge on a tiny, shallow stream in the 70's. I didn't know what they were at the time but decided that I needed to catch one. It was a 6' boat rod, centrepin reel and 4lb line for everything then, I soon learnt.
 
Watching them swim up and down a shallow stretch of the Wey for three years fishing for them all the while - only catching chub. Growing the nads to go out night fishing at the end of that three year stretch put paid to them soon enough :eek:
 
As a teenager I got fed up of fighting for a decent swim on the local lakes, and realised that I could walk for miles along the banks of the Severn and Avon without seeing a single angler. I started chub fishing first, and moved on to barbel shortly after... haven't looked back since!
 
Initially taught by my dad on a local river, fishing for anything. He couldn't afford a reel for me so we just tied the line to the end of the rod.
Moved on to carp fishing in the early 80's heydays but soon burnt out....
Lost my father around the same time and i had a nagging to get back on the rivers......that was 23 years ago.....haven't looked back since.
Getting drawn to fishing the float for other species lately though, grayling, chub, etc.
Also love a bit of lure fishing for the perch.

So much to do, so little time........
 
Wouldn't actually consider myself a barbel angler, but I do seem to spend a lot of my time fishing for them these days.

My first encounter was when I was at school, my friend Paul Garner told me of how he and another friend had been to Bewdley to catch these awsome fish.

None of our parents drove cars so it was on the bus to Kidderminster then on to bewdley for us, lugging our wicker creels.

We all fished the same swim and the other two guys caught and I got my first look at the torpedo with fins. But my rod refused to go, then as luck would have it the guys went to play on the swings (I kid you not!), Paul's rod bent over and I picked it up, I yelled for him to come and take the rod but when he got there he graciously allowed me to land the fish.

After that I dabbled with the species, but always in the company of Paul.

Every time I tried for them on my own I pretty much failed to the point that they were a bit of a bogey species for me. I had some moderate success on the Teme, but it was patchy. Then I joined the KFAC, learned from the members got my confidence and now love fishing for them!
 
Hi men,

Like Pete, don't consider us ( sue) as barbel anglers , but anglers who fish for barbel . In desperation would fish the gutter after a good downpour !

Hatter
 
Saw my first ever barbel caught by an angler fishing from a boat in a Mole weir pool in 1962, wanted one for myself after that.
However it was the following year, August 24th to be precise, before I got my first one, by that time I had permission to fish said weir from the bank and went on to take plenty more barbel from there, mostly on worm.
It was a great varied fishery until it was ruined by flood prevention 'improvements', just because a few houses in Molesey got wet!
 
Penton Hook

Saw my first barbel caught at 'The Hook' in the late 50s and this inspired me to catch one, which I did from the weirpool.

Sausage was the bait in those distant days, happy memories!


As ever

Hugo



 
Haha, thanks Pete. I don't remember going to play on the swings but I'll take your word for it.

As Pete said I first started fishing for Barbel at school, but I was an avid match angler in my youth and Barbel were just another fish that I fished for. I was just as happy fishing for Bream in my local Bracebridge Pool in Sutton Park or Gudgeon on the staffs canal. For me, my fishing has always been about fishing places that I enjoy being in with people that I enjoy being with regardless of what I'm fishing for; and for a Birmingham council estate kid the Severn (and later Teme) Valley was just heaven. I'm just as happy seeing friends catch as catching myself, sometimes more so. It was always a great regret to me that my father wasn't interested in fishing.

When I bought my first house it was just outside Ironbridge as I always thought that was a beautiful area to live in and of course that gave me access to miles and miles or prime Barbel fishing in stunning surroundings but I was still mainly match fishing and Barbel were just another fish. The autumn would more than likely see me travelling to fish the Avon for Chub.

It wasn't really until moving south, finding this site and falling in with the likes of Jon Callen, Dick Dowing, Nick Coulthurst, Graham Elliott and later the WBC boys that I started to take Barbel more seriously. Again though it was still more about the venues and the company, it just happened that the waters I liked (the Kennet, Loddon and Thames) are big Barbel waters.

I've just been lucky to fish some great waters with some great people and catch some nice fish along the way.
 
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Darren Rosie said:
What inspired you to become a barbel angler?
Click to expand...

Barbel did!

Sounds silly, but as an angler who likes catching all species, across all disciplines be it coarse, game or sea - it is the barbel themselves which continue to make me want to catch them. Such a hard fighting fish, beautifull in their own way and found in some lovely locations - what more could you ask for! :)
 
I'm a newby by some of you lads standards but I have long admired the Barbel. Back in the 80's when Regional Organiser for the Carp Society in Kent, we had Mike Wilson attend our meetings on a couple of occasions and gave an excellent slide show on Savay and the Colne Valley. Mike sneaked a few pictures of Barbel from the Kennet and The Hampshire Avon into his show and he even offered to take me to catch one !!!. Even when I worked with Mike for a short period I never took him up on the offer to my loss.....I then went into a period of not fishing [lasted 20 years] but I always said " I would love to catch a Barbel". It wasn't untill a little over four years ago that my Mrs and I were away on holiday in Greece, one evening I got the phone out of the safe to catch up on messages from home to be greeted with the following from No.1 son....."Caught two 8 lb Barbel and seen a Barn Owl"...The bugger had beaten me to catching the fish of my dreams...Got back from hols and made arrangements to go on a long weekend with him to Bridgnorth, caught my first and as they say "I'm hooked"
 
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