Fishing a river in flood

[Matt Withers]

I’ll start this by saying I’m fairly new to river fishing in general, fishing for barbel more so, I know the basics, and catch reasonably well when the rivers at normal levels, I always struggle when the waters up, although I did catch my pb barbel on a flooded ribble, the stretches I fish, to me seem generally devoid of slack water when the rivers high, I’ve found a few slacks and do occasional catch , but for me I generally end up trying to fish into the main flow, some times it works, mostly it doesn’t, how would you approach a flooded river if there was no slack water available ?

 

[Keith Humphreys]

I’ll start this by saying I’m fairly new to river fishing in general, fishing for barbel more so, I know the basics, and catch reasonably well when the rivers at normal levels, I always struggle when the waters up, although I did catch my pb barbel on a flooded ribble, the stretches I fish, to me seem generally devoid of slack water when the rivers high, I’ve found a few slacks and do occasional catch , but for me I generally end up trying to fish into the main flow, some times it works, mostly it doesn’t, how would you approach a flooded river if there was no slack water available ?

Hi Matt
Floodwater fishing is quite an extensive subject and lot's of us will have differing views on the best way to approach them.
Different rivers demand different tactics due to the substrate of the river bed e.g. whether the river bed is gravel or rocky and therefore snaggy.

I feel you need to talk to Ribble regulars who I'm sure would be only too happy to give you advice on the best tactics for where you are fishing.

If you ever find yourself down on the Hants Avon or Dorset Stour I will be happy to advise

 

[Gary Wagstaff]

On the Ribble fish up to the crease line were ever it is .that's were they like to sit you don't need a big smelly bait 12mm pellet with a paste wrap will catch on Ribble.
In a slack if it is bank high make sure you put it in the river bed not on the bank.

 

[Richard Isaacs]

I’ll start this by saying I’m fairly new to river fishing in general, fishing for barbel more so, I know the basics, and catch reasonably well when the rivers at normal levels, I always struggle when the waters up, although I did catch my pb barbel on a flooded ribble, the stretches I fish, to me seem generally devoid of slack water when the rivers high, I’ve found a few slacks and do occasional catch , but for me I generally end up trying to fish into the main flow, some times it works, mostly it doesn’t, how would you approach a flooded river if there was no slack water available ?

Maybe not slack but is there areas of slower and faster water available to look at?

I don’t know the Ribble at all so I wouldn’t even attempt to tell you what is and isn’t there but does your section have any nice bends?
You often find a raging river will do one of 2 things on a bend depending on the sharpness of the radius and the height of the river among other things I’m sure.
It can push wide and take out the very outside of the bend creating a very fast outer line and very slow and fishable inside line……….or it can cut the corner off like taking an apex straight through the inside line and create a back eddy right on the outside which again very fishable if on your side of the bank. Either way bends can be very good flood areas to find fishable areas.

 

[Alan Palmer]

Hi Matt, plenty of advice in previous posts about fishing floods in general, not specific to Ribble.
Many advocate a nice glide of brisk walking pace…including me.
This isn’t very high water but this might give you an idea …a lovely fast glide over gravel between weedbeds I think is a good bet …it was about 5ft…(2ft ish above normal level)

 

[Gary Wagstaff]

No weed beds on Ribble very few features fallen trees or trees over the water to fish to .
Bedrock plates and boulders gravel bars.A spate river can go up 4mts in 12 hours and 3mts run off in 24 hrs as it did late Wednesday night to this early this morning .
Most large trees wedged in the river do not stay long .
It is deeper up stream around Ribchester than Preston on the lower river.