Barbel bites/ takes

[Tim Marks]

this with a critically balanced hookbait so it just hovers above the hook …don’t know why it’s called a german rig… perhaps it’s because it’s reliable

when you use a wafter or critically balanced bait it sits up and masks the hook
View attachment 16405

That looks like a ‘turbo German’ to me ! Cue loads more jokes……

There is a nice little Gardner video on how it works. Allegedly.

IF all you are trying to do is hide the hook then a ‘KD’ rig is a great deal less cumbersome and also very easy to tie……

FWIW I’ve never even tied up a German rig or a Ronnie rig…….they are the dubious parents of the turbo version.

 

[Graham Elliott]

Does it sit up nicely with any flow Terry?

 

[Terry Harman]

not sure about heavy flow graham but i’ve used it on the nene in normal conditions it’s a very slow moving river and i have caught using it

i don’t know why but in the main barbel anglers seem petrified of playing around with rigs.. we could learn so much from the carp boys.. it’s like we are stuck in a time warp

 

[Chris Thomson]

not sure about heavy flow graham but i’ve used it on the nene in normal conditions it’s a very slow moving river and i have caught using it

i don’t know why but in the main barbel anglers seem petrified of playing around with rigs.. we could learn so much from the carp boys.. it’s like we are stuck in a time warp

I know exactly what you mean Terry , when i posted a few months ago about the combi rig i was met with a load of negative comments about it being unnecessary and not needed but ive always believed that certain rivers with pressured previously caught barbel that they can be cagey and extremely aware of any rig/bait that doesnt look right to them. Ive been using the " D" rig lately with some success but thats another rig that a few on here would say is unnecessary and has no place in barbel fishing, all i say is if on your river you can still catch them on simple hair rigs happy days but on some rivers a more complex rig may help outwit some of the bigger fish with a history of repeat captures that are adept at ejecting bait/rigs

 

[Richard Parsons]

I've never intentionally fished for carp but imagine stillwater gives more scope for rig variation/experimentation? We know that, in the main, barbel are bottom feeders; so if fishing on the riverbed it's important to keep the rig as close as possible to the bottom, using putty, backleads, etc, etc. That's usually my main focus. Admittedly I haven't experimented with rigs at all, beyond the usual length of hooklink. A bit lazy really.

 

[Stuart Linton]

Just something else to throw into the mix. There is a theory amongst carp anglers that feeding small mass particle baits makes hooking fish harder due to minimal movement from fish rooted to a spot, hoovering up small sections of lake bed as opposed to boilie fishing with larger food items that are spread further apart making fish move between mouthfuls, aiding hooking. I agree with this theory as a carp angler but so you think this applies to barbel?

As a carp angler in the main and all the rig trickery that this world inhabits, I have never felt the need to use anything more than a knotless knot or a naked hook pushed into a bait item for Barbel although I will always keep an open mind on the subject. This is from fishing for pressured and unpressured fish from multiple rivers. The only things I ever adjust are hooklink length, hook size or bait size. As with carp, feeding confidence is key and in that situation any decent simple rig will work.

 

[Terry Harman]

i think the popular misconception is by using different rigs you are trying to get fish to pick up your hookbait ..and that’s really not the case … barbel aren’t that clever they will pick up most food items regardless of what your rig is …. what i’m trying to achieve is once picked up they can’t eject ….. and i can’t achieve that by using a plain hair rig

 

[Joe Winstanley]

I've used a blowback rig with success in the past. I would use it more but I find it fiddly and time consuming to tie, and it's really annoying when the hook gets blunted on gravel after 2 casts and a fresh rig is needed!! I would probably experiment a bit more if I fished a river like the Havon on a regular basis and could spend more time observing barbel behaviour.

I don't get why some barbel anglers seem to get so irked and feel the need to make negative comments when anyone mentions using a more complicated rig. It might not be there thing, and so long as the rigs are safe, if others want to innovate and share their knowledge on them surely that's a good thing right?

 

[Joe Winstanley]

Just something else to throw into the mix. There is a theory amongst carp anglers that feeding small mass particle baits makes hooking fish harder due to minimal movement from fish rooted to a spot, hoovering up small sections of lake bed as opposed to boilie fishing with larger food items that are spread further apart making fish move between mouthfuls, aiding hooking. I agree with this theory as a carp angler but so you think this applies to barbel?

As a carp angler in the main and all the rig trickery that this world inhabits, I have never felt the need to use anything more than a knotless knot or a naked hook pushed into a bait item for Barbel although I will always keep an open mind on the subject. This is from fishing for pressured and unpressured fish from multiple rivers. The only things I ever adjust are hooklink length, hook size or bait size. As with carp, feeding confidence is key and in that situation any decent simple rig will work.

I always think small mass particle baits in stillwaters are much more spread out than people think. On a couple of stillwaters I've fished, I've been able to go out in a boat with a aquascope and look at areas I've spombed or spodded particles to. Easy to think you've nailed the marker float and got a nice tight spread, then find the baited area is over 15ft wide. This summer I've on a couple of occasions I've baited up using a spopper over the side of the boat - now that is a way to get a tight spread!

 

[Terry Simner]

Just something else to throw into the mix. There is a theory amongst carp anglers that feeding small mass particle baits makes hooking fish harder due to minimal movement from fish rooted to a spot, hoovering up small sections of lake bed as opposed to boilie fishing with larger food items that are spread further apart making fish move between mouthfuls, aiding hooking. I agree with this theory as a carp angler but so you think this applies to barbel?

As a carp angler in the main and all the rig trickery that this world inhabits, I have never felt the need to use anything more than a knotless knot or a naked hook pushed into a bait item for Barbel although I will always keep an open mind on the subject. This is from fishing for pressured and unpressured fish from multiple rivers. The only things I ever adjust are hooklink length, hook size or bait size. As with carp, feeding confidence is key and in that situation any decent simple rig will work.

I think it's much more than a just theory @Stuart Linton. E.G.. if you use a long hook length when using a maggot feeder then you can easily end up with deep hooked barbel, as they 'hoover' up the maggots as they work upstream towards the emptying feeder (= no bite indication til hook swallowed), as opposed to the usual : pick up a single bait and then turn downstream (= 3ft twitch)
Re. anglers on here thinking complex rigs are unnecessary ... I think most are actually saying "In practice, I've never found a need for them".
Like with the "Which boilie?" question ... if a certain bait or a certain rig gives you confidence, then great. Just make sure that rig is 'safe'.

 

[Joe Winstanley]

I think it's much more than a just theory @Stuart Linton. E.G.. if you use a long hook length when using a maggot feeder then you can easily end up with deep hooked barbel, as they 'hoover' up the maggots as they work upstream towards the emptying feeder (= no bite indication til hook swallowed), as opposed to the usual : pick up a single bait and then turn downstream (= 3ft twitch)
Re. anglers on here thinking complex rigs are unnecessary ... I think most are actually saying "In practice, I've never found a need for them".
Like with the "Which boilie?" question ... if a certain bait or a certain rig gives you confidence, then great. Just make sure that rig is 'safe'.

I can honestly say Terry that I've never once had a deep hooked barbel using long hooklengths and maggots/casters. Even in gin clear day time conditions when using hooklengths up to 6ft.

 

[Terry Simner]

I can honestly say Terry that I've never once had a deep hooked barbel using long hooklengths and maggots/casters. Even in gin clear day time conditions when using hooklengths up to 6ft.

That surprises me Joe, not even hooked well inside the mouth, back from the lips?

 

[Graham Elliott]

Just something else to throw into the mix. There is a theory amongst carp anglers that feeding small mass particle baits makes hooking fish harder due to minimal movement from fish rooted to a spot, hoovering up small sections of lake bed as opposed to boilie fishing with larger food items that are spread further apart making fish move between mouthfuls, aiding hooking. I agree with this theory as a carp angler but so you think this applies to barbel?

As a carp angler in the main and all the rig trickery that this world inhabits, I have never felt the need to use anything more than a knotless knot or a naked hook pushed into a bait item for Barbel although I will always keep an open mind on the subject. This is from fishing for pressured and unpressured fish from multiple rivers. The only things I ever adjust are hooklink length, hook size or bait size. As with carp, feeding confidence is key and in that situation any decent simple rig will work.

Stuart.
There is no doubt that barbel can get preoccupied with particles, sometimes with the exclusion of the same bait in larger sizes

Really weird when you can't get many bites on a 12mm pellet over say 6mm pellet feed for example but a change to 6mm gets bites consistently on same hook size.
Happened too many times to not be valid.

Re deep hooked barbel. Strangely, and thinking back, probably had more deep hooked fish on large lumps meat than any bait including maggots. But again, my hook link lengths are rarely more than 2ft.

Then again with that large bait size I guess a fish would be more likely to stay static to swallow down than move off straight away?

 

[Joe Winstanley]

That surprises me Joe, not even hooked well inside the mouth, back from the lips?

Occasionally, but not what I'd call deep-hooked.

 

[Terry Harman]

Just something else to throw into the mix. There is a theory amongst carp anglers that feeding small mass particle baits makes hooking fish harder due to minimal movement from fish rooted to a spot, hoovering up small sections of lake bed as opposed to boilie fishing with larger food items that are spread further apart making fish move between mouthfuls, aiding hooking. I agree with this theory as a carp angler but so you think this applies to barbel?

As a carp angler in the main and all the rig trickery that this world inhabits, I have never felt the need to use anything more than a knotless knot or a naked hook pushed into a bait item for Barbel although I will always keep an open mind on the subject. This is from fishing for pressured and unpressured fish from multiple rivers. The only things I ever adjust are hooklink length, hook size or bait size. As with carp, feeding confidence is key and in that situation any decent simple rig will work.

i get what your saying stuart but things progress why are barbel any different to carp we could all up our catch rates by just trying something new

Re. anglers on here thinking complex rigs are unnecessary ... I think most are actually saying "In practice, I've never found a need for them".

i get that terry and it’s each to there own and i’m not judging just saying…. why always have strawberry jam on your toast… why not try plum jam you never know it might taste better

 

[Gerry Giles]

re Pre occupied ??
maybe maybe not
Going back to the mid 70s I was fortunate enough to be able to carp fish an estate lake a crystal clear fairly shallow lily filled lake with lots of overhanging trees that you could climb and sit watching the carp
Initially I caught very well using large cubes of spam on a no 4 hook the mainly commons to around 18lb fought like demons but after a few weeks the bites stopped
on climbing the tree armed with a pocket of small stones and spam hook baits I waited until a few carp came out from under the lily`s and tossed a stone near them it was obvious they new the stone had gone in then one swam over and investigated it
great I thought well they are not spooked so when it moved away I dropped a spam hook bait again one came over to see

BUT !!!!!!!!!!!
the reaction was incredible the fish on seeing the spam kinda shook and boom powered away at high speed clearly it looked terrified ?
I continued for the next couple of hours and it was the same reaction these fish bolted on site of the hook baits I had been catching them on !!

so I thought I need to change something one of the 3 things either the smell the colour or the size as they are clearly associating it with danger
and so I cut the large cubes into four 1/4 cubes climbed the tree and repeated the test
this time they eat the cubes like no tomorrow !!
I caught well again for the next few weeks
so were they pre occupied ? NO just not scared of the smaller baits for a while

 

[Stuart Linton]

i get what your saying stuart but things progress why are barbel any different to carp we could all up our catch rates by just trying something new

And that's why I would keep an open mind. If I was losing barbel or hooking on the extremities of the mouth then I would think there was a problem but they very rarely fall off (can count on one hand) and are well hooked for the most part. I just don't think barbel have a mouth very well designed to eject rigs like carp do. The fish also have flow to contend with.

The only time I have had odd bites showing as slow long pulls on the tip was on a dredged river with barely any flow. One angler had it sussed by using bobbins on a 2-3 foot drop. Having watched barbel take baits on a normal river it is easy to see how lack of flow can cause sketchy bites.

 

[Ian Lovett]

Stuart.
There is no doubt that barbel can get preoccupied with particles, sometimes with the exclusion of the same bait in larger sizes

Really weird when you can't get many bites on a 12mm pellet over say 6mm pellet feed for example but a change to 6mm gets bites consistently on same hook size.
Happened too many times to not be valid.

Re deep hooked barbel. Strangely, and thinking back, probably had more deep hooked fish on large lumps meat than any bait including maggots. But again, my hook link lengths are rarely more than 2ft.

Then again with that large bait size I guess a fish would be more likely to stay static to swallow down than move off straight away?

This is exactly my experience on the Trent. I've caught loads of barbel on small pellets when they won't take large ones of the same type. Also I can't recall having a deep hooked barbel on small baits while I have had deep hooked fish on trundled meat, either free lined or with a few large split shot. This may be due to fishing small baits in conjunction with a feeder or lead and acting like a bolt rig. When fishing a large chunk of meat there would be very little resistance so the fish gulps it down with no concern.

Absolutely loving the way this thread is heading!

 

[Clive Kenyon]

I think that Gerry's explation of aspects that fish come to recognise in baits is not understood by many anglers in my experience. You don't have to change a previously successful bait, just modify it. I would add texture and shape to the three Gerry mentioned though.

Based purely on my own observations ane experience I believe that a double bait on a hair usually results in a more positive bite. My standard barbel baits for French rivers when not using luncheon meat are two 6mm pellets mounted on bands on a loop, two Frolicks dog biscuits mounted the same way and two artificial maize grains on a hair rig.

 

[Dave Payne]

Late Autumn on the tidal fishing multi sweetcorn hair rigged,long hooklength & had spommed in a fair amount of hemp/corn close in,had a few biggish bream & thought i had another tap tapping bream bite.Much to my surprise it was a pb barbel.I thought at the time what Graham mentioned that it hooked its self but carried on feeding due to hooklink length.Every fish ive had in 14 years have always given a very posotive bite,i dont use alarms just watch tips