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Fox Barbel recovery tunnel

Sorry Rich, but i disagree with you on this one. When i started fishing for barbel, me and my 2 mates just treated barbel like any other fish. We DID put them in keepnets. WHY ? because we were uneducated. To us, they were just the same as any other fish, i.e. carp, tench, roach etc. We were none the wiser. It is only through forums like this, that we learnt it was wrong. Maybe these 3 other people you talk about, are in the same position we were.
 
Derek Funcks said:
Sorry Rich, but i disagree with you on this one. When i started fishing for barbel, me and my 2 mates just treated barbel like any other fish. We DID put them in keepnets. WHY ? because we were uneducated. To us, they were just the same as any other fish, i.e. carp, tench, roach etc. We were none the wiser. It is only through forums like this, that we learnt it was wrong. Maybe these 3 other people you talk about, are in the same position we were.
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Thatā€™s the difference Derekā€¦.. you accepted education and changed what you did accordingly. Everyone is entitled to cock it up and be educated.

If I was to say to you Iā€™d done everything by the book in the past Iā€™d be completely lying. When I first started out pike fishing 30 years ago, young lad at school I used to let em run for a good 15-20 seconds before hitting em because I was more worried about losing them then deep hooking them. Honestly I think about it now and still feel ashamed. However I learned quickly when I became faced with a two hook rig past the point of my comfort zone and Iā€™m very fortunate that i got it out and it went back just fine. Shook me up at the time mind.

The thing that really really grinds on me is not the fact that people do such things, itā€™s the fact they wonā€™t be educated.
Thereā€™s so much information out there now on correct handling of barbel and pike and very very little is contradictory nowadays, itā€™s just an insult to our passion when people openly say ā€œoh Iā€™ll put barbel in a keepnet because itā€™s a safe place to retain themā€ even after a dozen posts before it suggesting itā€™s a potentially dangerous place to put and keep them.
 
I don't advocate putting any species of fish in a keepnet. However, there's no law stopping anyone from doing so. To advocate assaulting someone for doing something that isn't actually illegal seems a tad excessive. However, should anyone desire to follow through on this threat, I dare say that walking down the Severn, Trent or Wye on a Sunday from June to October might give you many targets. Who knows, you might even bag a big name angler to really drive your point home.
 
Chris Jones said:
I don't advocate putting any species of fish in a keepnet. However, there's no law stopping anyone from doing so. To advocate assaulting someone for doing something that isn't actually illegal seems a tad excessive. However, should anyone desire to follow through on this threat, I dare say that walking down the Severn, Trent or Wye on a Sunday from June to October might give you many targets. Who knows, you might even bag a big name angler to really drive your point home.
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Iā€™m not advocating assault Chris (yes the post reads exactly the opposite to that) but Iā€™m retracting that part based on the fact that I was just annoyed to read such crap and responded as such.
 
The wisdom on this subject seems to be that leaving a barbel in a landing net to recover is the best thing to do to allow the fish to recover after capture and before release back to the river . However if you look at it logically putting a barbel in a much larger well positioned fully submerged net [ a keepnet ] to allow it to recover would on the face of it seem a better option , as the fish has more room to move around more freely and right itself fully covered by water . Modern keepnets have very fine mesh so little chance of snagging the dorsal fin . I am not trying to be controversial here just looking at the issue logically . Any thoughts ?
 
That seems perfectly logical to me Mike.

I think the key is positioning and duration.

There is a world of difference between placing a barbel in a net for a short duration to aid its recovery, and placing it in a net to weigh in at the end of the day.

I nearly always rest fish in a landing net, but in practice it would be possible to achieve the same result using a modified keep net.
 
I think the problem with any retention/recovery strategy for Barbel is that everything is a compromise . A landing net is just that , a net for landing fish not retaining them . Like most others I tend to follow the perceived wisdom of leave the barbel in the landing net for a while before unhooking it / potentially weighing in , however no landing net that I have come across [ and I have tried all sorts of designs ] is particularly well suited to resting fish in . This is increasing leading me towards the view that some sort of Barbel friendly keep net may be a better solution to the landing net compromise . Ultimately what is needed is a keepnet that is big enough to accommodate the fish , and has fine mesh that doesn't snag the fishes dorsal fin . Most Keepnets on the market these days are at 8 or 10ft long , pretty capacious , and with fine mesh, so in that sense to my eyes they would be better than a landing net . I guess the challenge is the staking out of the net so that the fish are fully covered with water ,which ideally is flowing / aerated and getting them in and out of the net safely . It is interesting that from what I can gather placing Pike in tubes / net whatever you want to call it , is seen as acceptable and OK for the fish . I am not a Pike angler but know from my limited experience that they are a far from robust fish
 
My first comment (removed) wasnā€™t very tactful so my apologies. It just winds me up the wrong way to read such things.

So more tactfully put my thoughts on putting a barbel inside a keepnet for any reason canā€™t be any clearer. Itā€™s unnecessary at best and lethal at worst.

Think about the stage at where you might do this to understand my point.
You put your landing net under your fish for the first time and happy days. Sheā€™s in!

Now at this point 1 of 2 things are going to happenā€¦.. Sheā€™ll either be able to self right and maintain her position in the water or sheā€™ll go white side up. In either case you would not remove her to unhook her until youā€™ve got her in a position where sheā€™s holding herself up, Gills are moving and sheā€™s making attempts at moving in the net. I donā€™t lift em out to unhook em till they are literally trying to swim off. Sometimes this takes a while but thatā€™s the stage she needs to be at before she comes out of the water for the first time.

So where does the keepnet come in?
Surely your not going to put a near on fully recovered barbel into it as thatā€™s as I said above unnecessary.

And if your unhooking/weighing process is so bad that when you do transfer it to the water, she goes white side up, your not going to put her in a keepnet in this case as thereā€™s no supervision or support to keep her held the correct way. As said above lethal.

I canā€™t for the life of me think of a stage during the process where itā€™s beneficial for the barbel. Ref suitable landing nets ā€¦ if itā€™s not suitable use a bigger one. I have absolutely no problem with a decent 36ā€ triangle for retaining my capture to fit and healthy standards before sheā€™s even had the hook out.
 
Its all a compromise Richard . Say for example you have your 14 lb + barbel in your 36 inch landing net still tethered to your line with a 5oz feeder snagged in the mesh , the fish is belly up and its struggling to right itself / turn itself in to the current , perhaps its dorsal fin has become entangled in the net mesh as well , what do you do then ? My only point about the potential advantage of a well positioned fully submerged keep net is that fish will have plenty of room to move about in a quiet environment giving it all the time it needs to recover , although clearly you would have to unhook the fish first to place it in the keepnet . I am not seeking to cause an argument here just contributing to the discussion . I don't routinely put Barbel in keepnets, but I do believe placing a barbel in a 10ft well staked out keepnet is not going to harm/kill the fish and may well help it recover better , but like the landing net recovery approach it clearly has its drawbacks as well .Also bear in mind that fish that appear to have fully recovered and swim away strongly will unfortunately still go belly up from time to time .Despite my best efforts this has happened to me and if we are honest probably to many of us.When this has happened to me I had to to chase down the bank scoop the fish up in the landing net and start the recovery process again , this was after going through the standard recovery process that you outline in you post . Maybe , just maybe if I had put it in a keepnet and left it there it wouldn't have happened ? It's just food for thought Richard , nothing else
 
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Mike Hodgkiss said:
Its all a compromise Richard . Say for example you have your 14 lb + barbel in your 36 inch landing net still tethered to your line with a 5oz feeder snagged in the mesh , the fish is belly up and its struggling to right itself / turn itself in to the current , perhaps its dorsal fin has become entangled in the net mesh as well , what do you do then ? My only point about the potential advantage of a well positioned fully submerged keep net is that fish will have plenty of room to move about in a quiet environment giving it all the time it needs to recover , although clearly you would have to unhook the fish first to place it in the keepnet . I am not seeking to cause an argument here just contributing to the discussion . I don't routinely put Barbel in keepnets, but I do believe placing a barbel in a 10ft well staked out keepnet is not going to harm/kill the fish and may well help it recover better , but like the landing net recovery approach it clearly has its drawbacks as well .Also bear in mind that fish that appear to have fully recovered and swim away strongly will unfortunately still go belly up from time to time .Despite my best efforts this has happened to me and if we are honest probably to many of us.When this has happened to me I had to to chase down the bank scoop the fish up in the landing net and start the recovery process again , this was after going through the standard recovery process that you outline in you post . Maybe , just maybe if I had put it in a keepnet and left it there it wouldn't have happened ? It's just food for thought Richard , nothing else
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Iā€™m on the same page Mike regarding Iā€™m not looking for an argument either and yes I cannot say Iā€™m 100% air tightly covered for every single possible outcome but like everyone Iā€™ll do my best and prepare accordingly.
simply where we would disagree is the keepnet being involved. šŸ‘šŸ»
 
Essentially Richard , despite all our best efforts as responsible anglers, we are putting fish under stress by the very fact of catching them and fish ,will ,on occasion, react badly to the distress we have caused them . There is no perfect solution to the issue of handling / caring for Barbel after we have caught them ,we just do the best we can accepting , I hope ,that angling does put fish under a degree of stress and occasionally things can go wrong . This said I do not subscribe to the view that retaining a Barbel in a keepnet for a period is automatically a bad thing , a good rest in a well positioned keepnet does them no more harm than leaving them in the confines of a landing net . I have seen Barbel kept in well positioned fully submerged keepnets [ usually only one or two in a huge 10ft keepnet ] for the duration of evening fishing matches [ 3 hours duration max ], and they have come to no harm whatsoever, indeed they have been absolutely raring to go after their confinement and fighting fit .This , while many don't like the idea of Barbel ,or indeed any fish being kept in keepnets is no different in my view to keeping barbel in carp sacks , retention tubes ,slings call them what you will , a practice that some , very well known Barbel anglers have and still employ .The late Tony Miles Queensford retention contraption being one example . However keeping large numbers of Barbel for a long period of time in any sort of net is not good practice .One practice that I have seen that does cause unnecessary distress is anglers faffing about with Barbel whilst doing self take still photography or videos , keeping fish out of the water for minutes at a time , Youtube is littered with examples of this , this is putting the anglers vanity ahead of the fishes welfare . A trophy shot is fine but only if done with meticulous pre preparation .
 
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