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Best Barbel Books

A couple of slightly off the wall suggestions:

Archie Braddock -the first seventy years,

Leighton Mcdonell - pulling on fish.

Both general specialist anglers rather than just barbel focused. But both prepared to try new things and think outside the box.
 
Hi men ,

Anything by Terry Hearn 😉

Tbh , video has killed books as it's so instant , other than Tel, so much free stuff on YouTube with people blogging and released a week later . With a long time since a barbel book released some of the suggestions above seem good to me . You could add river carping by Maylin and friends , fairly related to barbel fishing really .

Hatter
 
Andy Frances said:
We used to sell LOADS of barbel books. The Trevor West one sold well and also all the Tony Miles books.

There seems to be a huge gap in the market as I’m not aware of a recent ‘how to’ book being released for many years.

Maybe there’s not quite the market or interest these days to make it worthwhile? Everything I read nowadays is on a Kindle which although convenient, is pretty soulless. I can’t remember the last time I bought a physical book. How depressing.

Andy
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I think any barbel book now would need to reflect the huge reduction in barbel numbers since the best sellers were written. The chapter in Quest, Barbel River Round Up, would be considerably shorter these days. It also seems apparent that most of the smaller rivers where site location was possible are now almost devoid of barbel, so a lot of the tactics are now going to be irrelevant.
 
Mark Walker said:
Agree there Andy, I always try to buy physical vs kindle, kindle just isn’t the same

To answer the original question Elite Barbel and Quest for Barbel are my favourites but very dated now.
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I think while Elite Barbel has been out a few years it may be the book most relevant to modern barbel fishing, simply because a lot of it is about searching for a small head of fish in a long stretch of river. The main difference being that whereas Tony Miles was searching hard for 14 pounders we'll be doing the same for an 8 pounder. But my favourite angling book by some distance.
 
Alex Gowney said:
I think while Elite Barbel has been out a few years it may be the book most relevant to modern barbel fishing, simply because a lot of it is about searching for a small head of fish in a long stretch of river. The main difference being that whereas Tony Miles was searching hard for 14 pounders we'll be doing the same for an 8 pounder. But my favourite angling book by some distance.
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I've just requested this as a stocking filler
 
Can’t believe I missed that Terry Hearn has a new book out. Just added that to the Santa list! First two are excellent and read multiple times.
 
You will learn more from any steve stayner book than any other,I find it quite unbelievable that the man doesn't get mentioned as much as he should, not just for his books but he was a bait master,don't believe me buy 1 of his books and you will be hooked...
 
Huanzhou Zhu said:
How do you guys rate Andy Orem’ book?
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I've read it quite recently and it's pretty good. Although like others from that era, it's slightly of its time. Certainly some good watercraft (or 'rivercraft' as the author puts it) tips in there. Some useful diagrams and some great photography in there too.

In my opinion, I think a great deal of watercraft is instinctual, but it always helps to have the nuances of other's experiences there in black & white to affirm what you probably already know and put into practice.

*Edit - Assume you're referring to 'Barbel Mania'? A quick Amazon search and it looks as though he's done a couple of others about roving, meat fishing and Nile Perch! I can't comment on those.
 
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