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Growth rate of barbel

Mike Thompson

Mike Thompson

Senior Member & Supporter
Why does the top weight of barbel differ from river to river ?
I know that carp are selectively bred for growth. Fed heavily by the fish farm, transferred when several pounds in weight, then continually fed high nutritional food by anglers.
But barbel either breed in the river or are stocked at only a few ounces in weight from the EA farm. They are then in a river system where very little anglers bait goes in to substitute their natural food.
So why do barbel in the Yorkshire Ouse, Derwent, Nidd, Wharfe and Swale all appear to top out at perhaps 12lbs, when in the Trent, Dove, Severn and many others, they often achieve weights of 15lbs plus ?
 
"They are then in a river system where very little anglers bait goes in to substitute their natural food".

Not sure I agree with above. There are rivers where a hell of a lot of anglers bait goes in and that may be the answer to the question posed. Water temperature in the more northern rivers may also be an influencing factor IMO.
 
Have the rivers you speak about having a ceiling of 12lb been stocked from Calverton?Mike.If they have,are the Barbel to a maximum size yet.Every river i see stocked from Calverton the fish reach massive proportions.The Bed Ouse,Ivel,Trent,Wensum,Nene,Dove, etc have and are still producing massive fish.
 
Mark,
I have no specific knowledge of stocking. I think there have been a few introductions by the odd club, but these have been small in number and undertaken in recent years. So perhaps they will have an effect in the future.
Mike
 
Mike Thompson said:
Why does the top weight of barbel differ from river to river ?
I know that carp are selectively bred for growth. Fed heavily by the fish farm, transferred when several pounds in weight, then continually fed high nutritional food by anglers.
But barbel either breed in the river or are stocked at only a few ounces in weight from the EA farm. They are then in a river system where very little anglers bait goes in to substitute their natural food.
So why do barbel in the Yorkshire Ouse, Derwent, Nidd, Wharfe and Swale all appear to top out at perhaps 12lbs, when in the Trent, Dove, Severn and many others, they often achieve weights of 15lbs plus ?
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It's because they are proper Yorkshire barbel Mike , lean and hard not like their shandy drinking southern cousins :D
 
The 500 barbel released recently at Hammerton Mill on the Nidd where Calverton fish. Maybe temperature does have a big part to play regarding size of fish. We all know as the water warms up fish feed for longer periods! So maybe with a lower average temperature than southern rivers Yorkshire barbel do not grow to much larger proportions??
 
John Newman said:
"They are then in a river system where very little anglers bait goes in to substitute their natural food".

Not sure I agree with above. There are rivers where a hell of a lot of anglers bait goes in and that may be the answer to the question posed. Water temperature in the more northern rivers may also be an influencing factor IMO.
Click to expand...

Agreed as above
 
If the 12lb maximum weight fish are also at maximum length then it will be down to less food and colder weather,so use the tape measure.David it will be interesting to see if the Hammerton Mill area or other stocked stretches start to produce fish over 12lb in about 15 years time then there can only be one answer,Calverton.
 
Mike Hodgkiss said:
It's because they are proper Yorkshire barbel Mike , lean and hard not like their shandy drinking southern cousins :D
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I wonder if the Yorkshire Ouse barbel would grow larger if the huge shoals of bream were not present? How much bait from barbel anglers actually gets eaten by bream??
We may never know the answer. (A big barbel imo is anything over 9lb on a river up ere ;))
 
Mark Swaby said:
If the 12lb maximum weight fish are also at maximum length then it will be down to less food and colder weather,so use the tape measure.David it will be interesting to see if the Hammerton Mill area or other stocked stretches start to produce fish over 12lb in about 15 years time then there can only be one answer,Calverton.
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So what is the maximum length Mark ?
 
Ray Walton will have more accurate length maximums but a lot of these massive fish would be between 28 and 32 inches to the Fork.I did hear of an 18lb fish that was 27 inches to the fork but incredibly fat.I have no experience of the Trent fish but would expect them to be within those 4 inch maximum lengths.
 
I lifted this excerpt from Karen Twine's 'Barbel conservation survey ' thesis from 2013.....

Growth is density dependent, as illustrated by the rapid initial and subsequent slowing of growth of River Severn barbel (Churchward et al. 1984). Ultimate length also varies greatly between river systems: e.g. Bristol Avon - 776 mm; Hampshire Avon -1241 mm; Kennet -1366 mm; Stour - 854 mm; Thames - 844 mm; Severn - males 606 mm, females - 648 m (Craig Goch Research Team 1980). Age determination from scale readings from young fish is more reliable than older fish due to the closeness and poorly defined checks older samples (Hunt & Jones 1974).
..........

I would suggest that some of the stated ' ultimate length ' figures given are now outdated and have been surpassed as barbel population densities have declined on some of the above rivers.

https://barbel.co.uk/site/vbulletin/forum/members/picture.php?albumid=493&pictureid=5786

The above Stour fish was well above 854mm for instance.

I suppose in theory it wouldn't just be down to 'barbel' density,.. but also other species who compete with barbel for food.

Looking back ( again !) at my old fishing records to 2005 when 2 of us fished the H. Avon, and another 3 fished the Severn at Bridgnorth over the same 5 day period,... the low density Avon produced 18 barbel including 6 doubles against the 126 from the then higher density Severn which included only one double.

I guess you could juggle figures around and come up with a number of different conclusions, as there are obviously other reasons for differing growth patterns which might include anglers' bait, water quality, environment, genes and parasitic load to name but a few.:)
 
Hi Dave are you sure about those lengths 1366mm(Kennet) equates to well over 4 foot long. I wish!
 
Colin Dapp said:
Hi Dave are you sure about those lengths 1366mm(Kennet) equates to well over 4 foot long. I wish!
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You're right Colin.
I thought the HAvon and Stour differential looked a lot as well. I can only imagine there is one or two typos in her collated source material!:eek:
4 feet,...you've got me dreaming now!:D
 
One i remember reading(Canadian studies) is that fish from colder climates grow slower,have a longer growth period and live longer(without external issues).I do not know if that applies to barbel though.The Thames does throw up some big fish but i think you would be surprised how much bait some long stay fishermen feed and again the Thames /lower cherwell had a very early stocking from Calverton. Weight is a thing large/long fish can put on in a very short time.Years ago a Bristol Avon Chippenham fish put on over 1 lb in a week,to 14lb and i thought that was exceptional.But since then i myself have seen big barbel put on 2lb in a week and have heard stories of over 3 lb in less than 2 weeks from 9lb to over 12lb again with heavy baiting.
 
I'm sure I read somewhere that they can grow to 3 feet in length so after that the weight would all be in the girth. But like carp seem to be able to grow a lot bigger down south temperatures probably do play a part
 
I think it depends on whether you measure to the fork or the top of the tail and if it was measured on the flat and not round the curves.Dave, two of the maximum lengths stated in that study are miles out, 1366 mm/54 inches and the 1241mm /49 inches are way over the top a barbel that length would be over 40lb(i would have loved to have seen either fish but someone has made those figures up)
 
Mark Swaby said:
I think it depends on whether you measure to the fork or the top of the tail and if it was measured on the flat and not round the curves.Dave, two of the maximum lengths stated in that study are miles out, 1366 mm/54 inches and the 1241mm /49 inches are way over the top a barbel that length would be over 40lb(i would have loved to have seen either fish but someone has made those figures up)
Click to expand...

Perhaps they confused barbel with sturgeon Mark!:D
I've no idea how they come up with ultimate fish sizes for different rivers,...who can know that?
Perhaps some of their data was in imperial and they were pants at converting to metric?:D
 
Mark,
Your comments about fish putting on 2 or 3lbs in a matter of days. Do you think they actually keep this weight or is it just an over full gut which gets excreted a few days later. A which point they drop back to nearer their lower weight ?
 
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