Ian Grant
Senior Member & Supporter
In my opinion, it's not the size of the bait that matters, the critical words in your post Bob are .... ' bait dropper ', and ' every cast ' , the bait dropper.... or any type of feeder in my opinion will be doing what feeders do best, that's building a swim, and encouraging numbers of fish, usually the smaller far outnumbering the bigger, and as you say the bigger ones seeing the smaller hooked will shy off, also.... 'every cast'.... implying the dropper or feeder is applied frequently the splashing and disturbance further confirming the bigger fishes caution.
Most often I use double small baits in various shapes wrapped in paste, using feeders of any type, dropper, cage, method, etc, is a time honoured tactic for catching numbers of fish, but convincing a big old fish, that's learnt from experience of an anglers hook to take your bait is a different ball game.
You can approach targeting a big Barbel in two ways, first using feeders of all types in the way mentioned by frequent application through your session, and hope that one may make a mistake... and it might well do, but you may also grow a long beard waiting for it ! Or you can choose to deliberately target the bigger stamp of fish, by using techniques that considerably load the odds in your favour, that said by using those techniques, and forgoing those that will inevitably draw in larger numbers, you have to accept that you will not be catching Barbel in any great numbers, in fact in most cases if you get one take per session you are doing very well !
Small baits or big baits both will catch Barbel big or small, it's how you apply them for either that counts most in your success.
Most often I use double small baits in various shapes wrapped in paste, using feeders of any type, dropper, cage, method, etc, is a time honoured tactic for catching numbers of fish, but convincing a big old fish, that's learnt from experience of an anglers hook to take your bait is a different ball game.
You can approach targeting a big Barbel in two ways, first using feeders of all types in the way mentioned by frequent application through your session, and hope that one may make a mistake... and it might well do, but you may also grow a long beard waiting for it ! Or you can choose to deliberately target the bigger stamp of fish, by using techniques that considerably load the odds in your favour, that said by using those techniques, and forgoing those that will inevitably draw in larger numbers, you have to accept that you will not be catching Barbel in any great numbers, in fact in most cases if you get one take per session you are doing very well !
Small baits or big baits both will catch Barbel big or small, it's how you apply them for either that counts most in your success.