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BBBB -Big baits, big barbel?

Bob Brookes

Bob Brookes

Senior Member
Lee is a pal that I mostly fish with for predators in the winter and occasionally for a summer barbel session where we can share a swim. I can honestly say he is the best all-round angler I have fished with for a long while, being talented in all methods and for most species. Being an ex-match angler he just loves to have his string pulled and is never happier than when his float goes under or his tip goes round. If he hasn’t caught 80 barbel by the end of June he has had a slow start to the season. I know that in 2 consecutive session in October he has amassed over 30 barbel. The man’s a bagging machine!

Now the stretch I have concentrated on for 8 years, when I have had my specimen barbel head on, is not prolific. I have caught many really big fish from there and have always considered it my best chance for a daytime 16, or even 17, so I keep returning. That is despite it not being as nice a stretch as my other waters, and the access is poor. I have always confided in Lee about my successes and he was interested in having a go as his personal best barbel was just a 13. So, having had his fill of catching the smaller ones he decided to give 'my' stretch a go to try for a monster. He created his own swim with a little judicious pruning just down from where I favour. On his first session, after just 15 minutes, he obliterated his PB with a 14.10 and I couldn’t be more pleased, but not at all surprised. In 5 sessions he caught a total of 27 barbel a quantity that is unbelievable from that stretch in my experience. The caveat to that is that the only double is that one he caught, first cast, on his very first session. He is happy because he has a new best and he is getting some action from the 2 or 3 swims he has been fishing.

Contrast this with my trips to the same stretch this season. I went there twice in August and just once in October, fishing 3 different swims. In that time I caught just 4 barbel and lost 2 fish, without having a blank. The barbel I caught weighed 12.08, 12.04, 13.02 and 12.14 and the ones I lost were big fish too. We have put our heads together and discussed what we are doing differently and have come to some stark conclusions. I fish big baits, a 15mm boilie wrapped in paste and further surrounded by a munga concoction, resulting in a satsuma sized ball of goodness. On one of my sessions I just used mussels, 5 of them threaded on the line with a size 6 hook. Again, a monster mouthful!. I cast in, stick it on the rests and wait up to 2 hours before I wind in. I may get taps which I ignore just reacting to the violent take if it comes. That is my way on this stretch, but I appreciate that not everybody would wish to fish like that.

Lee on the other hand fishes a banded 6mm pellet, sometimes 2 of them. He uses a feeder with pellets in it, blocked with a small plug of ground bait. In effect he is depositing a bait dropper of small baits every cast, which is quite frequent. We have come to the logical conclusion that the smaller offerings attract the shoal fish and the bigger barbel hold back, soon departing when one of their smaller brethren get hauled out of the water. It is interesting that the only big one he caught was on his first cast before the smaller ones had homed in on his bait.

The only conclusion we have come to is that to consistently target the big ones you are better off using big baits. In my case the tips and taps I get that can precede the big pull are smaller fish pecking at the loose bait that will be surrounding my hook bait.

I don’t tend to fish for barbel in the colder months very often and when I do I don’t have much success. This is when small pellets and maggots can really come into their own, so my go to method fails to produce. That is when it is time to go perch and pike fishing!
 
I wish.....the Trent??
This is similar to myself and a very accomplished barbel angler I fish a lot with. He fishes line & length and is very happy to have not had a pull 2 hours in. He is adamant that a large, experienced barbel is very wary and the challenge is getting it's confidence whilst avoiding the smaller fish and chub. He catches a better stamp of fish than I do but a lot less. But... he uses tiny boilies 10,11,12mm max and feeds with a catty regularly but frugaly.
His system does work and I have seen him empty swims on the Wye when everyone else was struggling fishing 15mm boiles or double 12mms or big halibut pellets/ chunks of meat.
I fish like your pal early season, small feeders, banded pellets or naturals and very regular casting
If there is a pattern , and contrary to a lot of writing it would be
Shoal barbel - very quickly into the session and prolific then tails off
Chub move in but if not put in a keepnet soon spook the shoal
Slightly better barbel move in interspersed with good chub.
After chub catch on and bites slow, a better barbel will often come along towards the end of the session
Only hypothesizing but one could assume that it had been sitting off the active area? You would also think that with all the disturbance , it would scare it off but this is a pretty regular occurrence.
Neither of use big baits but we're fishing for fish 5-10lbs - your smallest fish would be the fish of a lifetime ☺️
Its' interesting in all these different approaches and no -" one size fits all" solution, but in the middle ground we have a lot of anglers who cast in big payloads, every 20-30 minutes and spray a couple of dozen boilies over the top. Both the sit and wait, and more proactive. less intrusive style seem to consistently outfish this approach.
 
Well yes I cannot argue that bigger baits and casting to a minimum will catch bigger fish, the fact that shoals of barbel as as rare as shoals of Burbot in many river's with the exception of the Trent,Upper Severn, and the Wye, its all us lesser mortals can do to target Barbel. If using small banded pellets or maggots in a feeder is not a problem in attracting all species then it certainly is more exciting than waiting for that solitary big female in every two mile stretch that keeps us all coming back, in hope more than anything else.

My approach now is less targeting single species more of enjoying whatever is available.
Perhaps we need to learn from the demise of our once barbel filled rivers such ad the Hants Avon, Bristol Avon Teme, and many more that if we don't adopt a sustainable approach then the Barbel will disappear , shoaling spawning barbel are now featuring on facebook etc, by anglers that can't wait to get amongst em!...roll on the 16th etc. 😕
 
Neil Smart said:
Well yes I cannot argue that bigger baits and casting to a minimum will catch bigger fish, the fact that shoals of barbel as as rare as shoals of Burbot in many river's with the exception of the Trent,Upper Severn, and the Wye, its all us lesser mortals can do to target Barbel. If using small banded pellets or maggots in a feeder is not a problem in attracting all species then it certainly is more exciting than waiting for that solitary big female in every two mile stretch that keeps us all coming back, in hope more than anything else.

My approach now is less targeting single species more of enjoying whatever is available.
Perhaps we need to learn from the demise of our once barbel filled rivers such ad the Hants Avon, Bristol Avon Teme, and many more that if we don't adopt a sustainable approach then the Barbel will disappear , shoaling spawning barbel are now featuring on facebook etc, by anglers that can't wait to get amongst em!...roll on the 16th etc. 😕
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I couldn't agree more with your second paragraph Neil. It is a long while since I fished the opening few weeks on the shallow, spawning stretches and caught a huge haul. You will usually find me (if you can) away from the crowds and more often than not avoiding the barbel totally. My barbel season doesn't really get underway until September when the others have had their fill.

As for the first paragraph, yes I do fish the Trent and yes it can be prolific on some stretches, but not everywhere. I feel your pain fishing some of the rivers that are now virtually devoid of them. I do fish around the country on occasions and have had some head banging sessions, so I feel your pain. Don't get carried away with the conception that all you have to do is roll up to the Trent cast in a catch a 15 pounder. Apart from some well publicised stretches it just isn't like that.
 
Bob Brookes said:
I couldn't agree more with your second paragraph Neil. It is a long while since I fished the opening few weeks on the shallow, spawning stretches and caught a huge haul. You will usually find me (if you can) away from the crowds and more often than not avoiding the barbel totally. My barbel season doesn't really get underway until September when the others have had their fill.

As for the first paragraph, yes I do fish the Trent and yes it can be prolific on some stretches, but not everywhere. I feel your pain fishing some of the rivers that are now virtually devoid of them. I do fish around the country on occasions and have had some head banging sessions, so I feel your pain. Don't get carried away with the conception that all you have to do is roll up to the Trent cast in a catch a 15 pounder. Apart from some well publicised stretches it just isn't like that.
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Thanks Bob,
I appreciate what you say regarding the Trent, I guess with all the attention it gets on here,especially we can get a rather distorted view, but nonetheless it features a lot a rather too much and in many ways seems to be the river that is the blueprint on how to catch Barbel, certainly when you look at tackle talk on here it is very much Trent based, it does seem to me all the main focus is on that River.

I fish the Warks Avon mainly, and a number of anglers say if you want to catch Barbel head to the Trent, it was not that long ago the Avon, and its big sister the Severn, and her little sister the Teme were prolific, and demanded different approaches, the Teme especially one of what I can only describe as heart stopping close up action.

I was lucky I experienced a bit of that before the river was exhausted, and was in my opinion over exploited and of course predated on by whatever was left from the star billing it received.

If ever t here was a river that ticked all my boxes it was the Teme.
But of course we have the close season, totally inadequate, when the majority of spawning coincides with the start of the new season, no wonder the fish dissapeared.

This is repeated throughout all our river's, the Trent hangs on, she is big, and apparently well stocked, the rest of us fish more in hope than expectation now, fuelled by the memories of what we had.

It's still fishing but not as we knew it captain.
 
Collingham doesn't always fish, catch it on the wrong day like 8 of our local barbel anglers did on the6th of november last year, a bit of a social ,and the biggest barbel of the day wins, sounds great ,this in on the famous first 10 pegs below the wier, i thought we might have trouble ,i'd fished the upper on the tuesday , not a bite, wednesday/thursday we had the first propper hard frosts of the year that knocked the temp and colour out of the river, i thought thats f#@cked it, but thought with the stories of so many fish surely we would catch, we fished from mid dayish, at 8 in the eve i think that carl was winning with a bream about 3 lb ,second was a small roach, i was on the end peg fishing two rods all day ,one in the bubbles ,one on the crease, the tips never moved all day, we had caught the frost water all right,,,
Regards
 
Forgot to say , i have never used bigger baits than 15 mm, and before they stopped making them sonubait 10 mm elips was my go to bait, not the flavoured ones,,,,
 
Bob Brookes said:
Lee is a pal that I mostly fish with for predators in the winter and occasionally for a summer barbel session where we can share a swim. I can honestly say he is the best all-round angler I have fished with for a long while, being talented in all methods and for most species. Being an ex-match angler he just loves to have his string pulled and is never happier than when his float goes under or his tip goes round. If he hasn’t caught 80 barbel by the end of June he has had a slow start to the season. I know that in 2 consecutive session in October he has amassed over 30 barbel. The man’s a bagging machine!

Now the stretch I have concentrated on for 8 years, when I have had my specimen barbel head on, is not prolific. I have caught many really big fish from there and have always considered it my best chance for a daytime 16, or even 17, so I keep returning. That is despite it not being as nice a stretch as my other waters, and the access is poor. I have always confided in Lee about my successes and he was interested in having a go as his personal best barbel was just a 13. So, having had his fill of catching the smaller ones he decided to give 'my' stretch a go to try for a monster. He created his own swim with a little judicious pruning just down from where I favour. On his first session, after just 15 minutes, he obliterated his PB with a 14.10 and I couldn’t be more pleased, but not at all surprised. In 5 sessions he caught a total of 27 barbel a quantity that is unbelievable from that stretch in my experience. The caveat to that is that the only double is that one he caught, first cast, on his very first session. He is happy because he has a new best and he is getting some action from the 2 or 3 swims he has been fishing.

Contrast this with my trips to the same stretch this season. I went there twice in August and just once in October, fishing 3 different swims. In that time I caught just 4 barbel and lost 2 fish, without having a blank. The barbel I caught weighed 12.08, 12.04, 13.02 and 12.14 and the ones I lost were big fish too. We have put our heads together and discussed what we are doing differently and have come to some stark conclusions. I fish big baits, a 15mm boilie wrapped in paste and further surrounded by a munga concoction, resulting in a satsuma sized ball of goodness. On one of my sessions I just used mussels, 5 of them threaded on the line with a size 6 hook. Again, a monster mouthful!. I cast in, stick it on the rests and wait up to 2 hours before I wind in. I may get taps which I ignore just reacting to the violent take if it comes. That is my way on this stretch, but I appreciate that not everybody would wish to fish like that.

Lee on the other hand fishes a banded 6mm pellet, sometimes 2 of them. He uses a feeder with pellets in it, blocked with a small plug of ground bait. In effect he is depositing a bait dropper of small baits every cast, which is quite frequent. We have come to the logical conclusion that the smaller offerings attract the shoal fish and the bigger barbel hold back, soon departing when one of their smaller brethren get hauled out of the water. It is interesting that the only big one he caught was on his first cast before the smaller ones had homed in on his bait.

The only conclusion we have come to is that to consistently target the big ones you are better off using big baits. In my case the tips and taps I get that can precede the big pull are smaller fish pecking at the loose bait that will be surrounding my hook bait.

I don’t tend to fish for barbel in the colder months very often and when I do I don’t have much success. This is when small pellets and maggots can really come into their own, so my go to method fails to produce. That is when it is time to go perch and pike fishing!
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The effectiveness of using big baits to target the bigger barbel was perfectly demonstrated by Lawrence Breakspear back in the late 80's/early 90's on the Lower Severn. By using a quarter of a tin of meat he quickly started to unlock the potential with numerous doubles, the method still produces more than it's fair share of the bigger fish there now.
 
But that was 30/40 year ago mark, if we had a poll on here to see what baits caught fish over say 13lb ( wich are still big barbel in my view) i'd be amazed if a quater of them were on big baits (over 30 mm) big baits do catch big fish but small baits catch all fish,
Regards
 
My pal and I use big baits (up to 40 mm boilies or pairs of 20mm) on the middle Thames simply to reduce the numbers of bream we catch.

When you have a swim full of doubles in front of you, the barbel don’t get much of a look in. Small baits simply get eaten more quickly by the bream.
 
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Jim Ufton said:
But that was 30/40 year ago mark, if we had a poll on here to see what baits caught fish over say 13lb ( wich are still big barbel in my view) i'd be amazed if a quater of them were on big baits (over 30 mm) big baits do catch big fish but small baits catch all fish,
Regards
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Agree Jim, a 13lb barbel is a big barbel.
 
I
Jim Ufton said:
But that was 30/40 year ago mark, if we had a poll on here to see what baits caught fish over say 13lb ( wich are still big barbel in my view) i'd be amazed if a quater of them were on big baits (over 30 mm) big baits do catch big fish but small baits catch all fish,
Regards
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I wouldn't dispute what your saying Jim, there are a number of influences also that can affect the effectiveness or the use of big baits. I guess the point I was making was Lawrence wanted to specifically target the bigger fish on the Lower Severn, and that was the approach he adopted. However long ago it was, it certainly worked!🙂
 
Have been using hig meat baits on the Kennet when conditions allow primarily so I've still got a bait on due the dreaded Crays...
 
Much the same as @Nick Coulthurst, in recent years targetting bigger fish, I was using two 1" (rounded) cubes of flavoured luncheon meat on the Pats and the Loddon, left alone close to the near bank, reckoning the big barbel have a few sniffs at intervals before they took the bait. Not everyone's cup of tea but it was mine. Long periods of inactivity with small twitches, often (very often) ending in a blank.

But that's when there were barbel present, few and far between now unfortunately, and pre crays (Loddon).

But my barbel days are over, will post soon.
 
Guy and Stuart were using 2x20mm bolies with big paste wrap when they caught the Thames RR some years ago.

Thames always a nightmare because of the vast bream shoals when I fished it regularly 20 years + ago. I actually used minimal feed bait because of it. Hookbait
2 or 3 10mm Elips
 
Graham Elliott said:
Guy and Stuart were using 2x20mm bolies with big paste wrap when they caught the Thames RR some years ago.

Thames always a nightmare because of the vast bream shoals when I fished it regularly 20 years + ago. I actually used minimal feed bait because of it. Hookbait
2 or 3 10mm Elips. At one time according to Bob Church book published 2005 I had
20220424_143026.jpg
he 2nd largest Thames barbel caught
Click to expand...
 
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