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Feeding barbel

S

Steve Smith

New Member
hi all, me and a freind of mine were fishing the royalty last sunday at trammels and i saw something quite amazing. I had my usual blank but my mate was lucky enoughto catch a nice barbel of just over 12lbs we decided to sack the fish just for 10 minutes to help it recover, when we returned the fish we expected the barbel to swim of but it didnt. It went straight to the bottom and started feeding on hemp which my mate had thrown in to amuse himself watching small fish feed. i coudnt believe what i was seeing, we were both gobsmacked to say the least. It would be interesting to now has anyone else seen this, cheers
 
Hi Steve,

did you drop a bait in front of its nose and try to catch it ? would have saved a blank and might be an ounce or so heavier than when your mate had it after it had scoffed all that hemp !!!
 
Some years back I caught a 30+ carp from the small lake I was targeting at the time, weighed it, photographed it and slipped it back. Probably four or five minutes later a mate of mine fishing the far bank (only 70/80 yds away) had a take, landed it....same fish :D

Sometimes previously canny fish seem to lose their marbles for a while....but not too often :D

Cheers, Dave.
 
its great to hear things like that dave, yes i have to put it down to just losing its head for while, in a way im glad i sacked it. must have been calm and relaxed to start feeding again
 
I've seen that happen a couple of times. On the Wye this June I caught a Barbel, rested, weighed and photographed it, returned it and it then picked up the same pellet which had been left in the edge after I unhooked it. It didn't put up much of a fight this time and was quickly returned. Nedless to say I didn't count it second time around :)
 
I had a similar thing with a carp around 15lb a few years ago, same fish out twice in 10 minutes from the same margin swim, makes you wonder doesn't it?
 
This reminds me of the time one of my mates had a barbel off the wye. Whilst we were resting it, two other barbel sat waiting no more than 10 foot away from the landing net. When we let the barbel recover and released it, the 2 barbel came right up to the net and they all swam off! Absolutely amazing!!!
 
Mark de Lancey said:
This reminds me of the time one of my mates had a barbel off the wye. Whilst we were resting it, two other barbel sat waiting no more than 10 foot away from the landing net. When we let the barbel recover and released it, the 2 barbel came right up to the net and they all swam off! Absolutely amazing!!!
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It was probably his two mates Mark, asking him what camera you had used...whether it had a decent lens, and did he think the pics would make it to the Anglers Mail :D

Seriously though, we really don't understand much about the world around us do we? Even the areas we profess to be interested in throw up things like that, just to demonstrate to us how little we know about anything :p

Cheers, Dave.
 
Mark de Lancey said:
This reminds me of the time one of my mates had a barbel off the wye. Whilst we were resting it, two other barbel sat waiting no more than 10 foot away from the landing net. When we let the barbel recover and released it, the 2 barbel came right up to the net and they all swam off! Absolutely amazing!!!
Click to expand...

Was the fish close to spawnng ? I have had a very similar thing happen to me.
 
I was once fishing a smallish river and caught a small perch with a distinctive mark on the dorsal fin I dropped it back in and put my rod back out and the same fish took it within about 4 seconds of it hitting the water. But also I was fishing the fosdyke navigation at saxilby (lincs) and It was a freezing day with ice and I broke the ice didn't have a bite for about 45mins on a lob worm so I chucked some mud out of the bucket and my float went under after about 20 seconds and I landed a pb perch of 4lb 2oz all strange but true. :):)
 
Was a guy packing up from a days trotting the other day as I got to the river. Said he'd landed 1 barbel and been smashed up by another. After he left I rolled a piece of meat under the likely looking tree he was trottin past and after a short tussle landed a nice barbel along with about 2ft of line and a chubber float.

I did see another funny thing earlier in the season too. Landed a barbel about 8lb, held it in the current for 5/10 minutes and let it go. It dropped straight to the gravel and just layed there. Gills were going and it was in pretty fast water so i just kept an eye on it as it was right next to my rod rest. It lay there for about an hour as i repeatedly stepped over it out into the river and back over. ran my hand along its flank, grabbed its tail it just layed there. Then all of a sudden after about an hour it just went mental and shot off into the deeper water at 100mph. Very strange, it was asif it had just been sat there in a trance.
 
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