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Catching at any cost

M

Mark Pevy

Senior Member & Supporter
a friend of mine just joined verulum angling for the river lea,he had 8 barbel in 4 hour's, nice,but he spoke to an angler who was float fishing that was actually using a match clicker,apparently he had 62 barbel whilst he was there, does that appeal to anyone on here, certainly not me🙄
 
It sounds like hard work, but I'd be a happy chap if a river near me were a tenth as prolific. I'm a little puzzled as to how this equates to "catching at any cost". To me, that implies that the angler concerned was doing something unethical, illegal or putting his quarry at risk in some way. Simply catching a lot of fish doesn't sound like catching at any cost to me.
 
One of my good mates (who is on this forum) blanked yesterday. He’s a top, top angler and I commiserated with him. He told me not to be sad because he’d had a lovely day and it was a pleasure to be out. He spotted a rare bird as well.

Let’s be honest: we all love to catch fish. But if that’s all that angling is, we’ve lost the heart of it. I wouldn’t mind catching more, but I hate the thought of the mystery seeping out of it.
 
Chris Jones said:
It sounds like hard work, but I'd be a happy chap if a river near me were a tenth as prolific. I'm a little puzzled as to how this equates to "catching at any cost". To me, that implies that the angler concerned was doing something unethical, illegal or putting his quarry at risk in some way. Simply catching a lot of fish doesn't sound like catching at any cost to me.
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My thoughts exactly Chris

Catching a lot of fish isn’t catching at any cost unless he’s using a stick of dynamite to build up his numbers. When I go float fishing, I don’t go to struggle despite the fact it does happen to us all from time to time but the general idea is to build up a swim of fish competing confidently for your loose feed and pick off as many as you possibly can in the session.

Now 62 barbel is a hell of a session even for the most prolific parts of the upper Lea.
The only reason those sections of thar river doesn’t appeal to me is due to how busy it is and the fact it’s a circus but I’d have no problem otherwise bagging up all day and seriously enjoying doing so.
 
Hang on…

Sixty-two barbel. How long did he fish for? Six hours? That’s ten barbel an hour or a fish every six minutes or so. Even if he fished ten hours that’s a fish every ten minutes.

Surely that’s been exaggerated.

Unless they were all 1-2lb
 
Alan Rose said:
Hang on…

Sixty-two barbel. How long did he fish for? Six hours? That’s ten barbel an hour or a fish every six minutes or so. Even if he fished ten hours that’s a fish every ten minutes.

Surely that’s been exaggerated.
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To be fair it doesn’t leave much fish care and recovery time. A couple of the ones I had yesterday (albeit alot less of them and a lot bigger) took in excess of 15 minutes to land.
 
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Richard Isaacs said:
To be fair it doesn’t leave much fish care and recovery time. A couple of the ones I had yesterday (albeit a less of them and a lot bigger) took in excess of 15 minutes to land.
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Exactly. Even a splashy fish can take a while to land and release.

A fisherman’s tale I’d wager.
 
I've done a little float fishing on the Severn. It certainly took me longer to bring them in, than it does on a feeder.
62 fish is quite a catch return.
If you go upstream of that fishery. There's some free stretches. The river is only a few metres wide and shallow. Amazing how some otters haven't found it. Don't think I'd have the endurance for that amount of fish. That must be knackering.
 
To be fair you get 16 or 17 hours of daylight so if he was there at sun rise and packed up and sunset that’s just under 4 fish an hour. Still pushing it with recovery time but if they were all small fish and he was hooking them within a couple of minutes of casting it could be done I guess but still seems a bit over exaggerated. I’d also imagine some would be recaptured as that’s quite a lot of individual fish to have in one swim
 
Chris Jones said:
It sounds like hard work, but I'd be a happy chap if a river near me were a tenth as prolific. I'm a little puzzled as to how this equates to "catching at any cost". To me, that implies that the angler concerned was doing something unethical, illegal or putting his quarry at risk in some way. Simply catching a lot of fish doesn't sound like catching at any
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Chris Jones said:
It sounds like hard work, but I'd be a happy chap if a river near me were a tenth as prolific. I'm a little puzzled as to how this equates to "catching at any cost". To me, that implies that the angler concerned was doing something unethical, illegal or putting his quarry at risk in some way. Simply catching a lot of fish doesn't sound like catching at any cost to me.
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Ok,i probably phrased that incorrectly, he has moved from the Severn to the wye and now the lea for easier fishing (catching) but that's his choice, and good luck to him👍
 
Mark Pevy said:
a friend of mine just joined verulum angling for the river lea,he had 8 barbel in 4 hour's, nice,but he spoke to an angler who was float fishing that was actually using a match clicker,apparently he had 62 barbel whilst he was there, does that appeal to anyone on here, certainly not me🙄
Click to expand...

Are you sure he didn't mistake Gudgeon for Barbel ? 😂
 
I’m happy to fish my low stocked stretch of river.And if I catch one in an evening I’m happy.Now I’m in my 70’s,catching that amount of barbel would finish me off,just don’t have the energy.
Sometimes it’s just nice to be sat by the the river with no pressure,and it’s very rare to share my stretch with anyone else.That'll do for me.
 
If the fish are infront of you and in feeding mode I imagine catching 62 would be very possible.
I myself had 43 barbel in an afternoons float fishing, my estimated sizes of them were between 5 and 10lbs, plus numerous other fish species mixed in amongst them. The population of barbel stayed very high for a few years, but sadly their numbers have dropped right off now and the silvers and chub have exploded in their numbers to fill the void.
As the old saying goes "you can only catch what's infront of you".
 
Just thinking back now it must have been 5 or 6 years ago maybe more the river was full to the brim when the season started so after a couple of weeks when it had dropped a bit I went to arley and fished the peg just below the island. I got there at 7pm and had to pack up at 9:20 as I’d run out of bait. Got through 5 tins of meat and had forgotten to put my pellets in my bag. But in that 2 hours that I was probably fishing I had 14 fish and lost 3. Every fish was hooked within 60 seconds of casting out. There was probably 1 or 2 that were 5 or 6lb the rest were all between about 1 1/2 and 4. All went back fighting fit. Most insane session Iv had and still the most fish Iv had in one day
 
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