Barbel nursery swims

[Richard Barrett]

Nursery swim may not be the correct term, but I'm sure you'll know what I mean?

During my early days in the 'Chub Study Group' 1970s we called swims that produced lots of fish, but in lower weights nursery swims. The other type are those that only produce maybe one or two fish, but the stamp is much bigger.

I know several swims on the Trent where on a best day, you could take a dozen fish, but nothing over 7lb ish. In contrast some swims are almost strictly doubles only. The swims have distinct similarities with their type. The nursery swims are a little shallower than normal 4'-6' and often have some structure. Maybe a fallen tree, or underwater snag, often not seen.

The doubles only swims are often deeper 8' plus, can have underwater snags, but often none, but nothing seen to suggest 'why' it's so good for better fish.

Just to say this is not always a given but a distinct pattern I've observed over many years on several barbel and chub rivers. Has anyone else noticed such too?
It's worth saying with the chub, scale counts disproved the fish were juveniles.

 

[Ian Sewter]

Originally posted on Wye river reports end of August:

What do you make of this...hooked 12 barbel today ... also had 7 chub. So nothing out of the ordinary... but all the chub were bigger than the barbel (except for the last lost fish) with the chub all being around the 3-4lb stamp and the barbel between 1-2 lb....tried various hook lengths and size of bait, static and moving...and they all gave the same type of bite except the last which nearly pulled the rod in.

Although small barbel can turn up anywhere, my friend and I have noticed on several rivers that some swims seem to be fairly permanent "barbel nurseries". You may also catch bigger barbel but you certainly seem to catch several small ones 8oz - 2lbs. I think also that although they can mix, year classes often swim together and so if you catch 1 small one you may go on to catch quite a few.

Another observation is that on one stretch of the Wye most fish are under 7lbs whereas on another similar stretch most fish are 7lbs to 9lbs