• You need to be a registered member of Barbel Fishing World to post on these forums. Some of the forums are hidden from non-members. Please refer to the instructions on the ‘Register’ page for details of how to join the new incarnation of BFW...

How far?

Paul Rogers

Paul Rogers

Senior Member
Over many years of fishing for barbel, mainly on small rivers; during the summer fishing hemp and caster; baitdropping regularly to build up a swim. Until the last two years it worked really well on both the river Loddon and Kennet, my local rivers; nine times out of ten, it produced multiple captures in an afternoon session. However, as the bio-mass of barbel has declined, so the captures have crashed.
so, if fishing for a smaller head of barbel, more distributed in the stretch of water; how far does each of us think a barbel can be drawn up stream to feed.
Would you take into consideration, that both these rivers are now heavily affected by raw discharged sewage, loss of the weed due to algae bloom; is there now an equation that would suggest that barbel and other fish cannot now smell the baits we use, due to the smells from the chemicals and bodily waste now flowing around them?
 
At the moment with waters clear and low, im going to hazard a guess at not too far. Doubt the fish are moving about that much and would guess that they are not spread out across the river, probably bunched up in a good location.
 
Paul Rogers said:
Over many years of fishing for barbel, mainly on small rivers; during the summer fishing hemp and caster; baitdropping regularly to build up a swim. Until the last two years it worked really well on both the river Loddon and Kennet, my local rivers; nine times out of ten, it produced multiple captures in an afternoon session. However, as the bio-mass of barbel has declined, so the captures have crashed.
so, if fishing for a smaller head of barbel, more distributed in the stretch of water; how far does each of us think a barbel can be drawn up stream to feed.
Would you take into consideration, that both these rivers are now heavily affected by raw discharged sewage, loss of the weed due to algae bloom; is there now an equation that would suggest that barbel and other fish cannot now smell the baits we use, due to the smells from the chemicals and bodily waste now flowing around them?
Click to expand...
Interesting question. I also fished the maggots and hemp approach on the W. Avon and Cherwell with, most of the time, considerable success. But I never thought the method was good for bringing barbel that far upstream and when barbel numbers dwindled so did the effectiveness of this method. That is maybe stating the obvious, but as numbers began to decline I would still expect there to be some barbel within say 100 yards of where I was baiting up. I don't think this method is effective at anything like that distance and would hazard a guess at it's effectiveness at maybe half that distance. But that is pure guesswork. I suppose if enough bait goes in and enough of it actually manages to get 100 yards downstream at regular enough intervals then it may draw the fish up in time. But this would depend on the feed. Maggots are more bouyant than casters and I don't think hemp travels very far except in strong flows. I don't know how far the oily smell of hemp travels but I doubt it's more than 20 or 30 yards. I also felt that as this is usually a daytime approach then a lot of barbel may not be actively roaming the river in search of food, whereas night fishing with stronger smelling baits has the obvious advantage of being detected by a moving barbel. The other point about water quality affecting a fish's sense of smell is something I hadn't even considered but I suppose it couldn't be ruled out.
 
I’d say they can pick up the scent of your bait from quite a long way down stream. Probably further than we think.
I can certainly smell the bbq cooking from 2 streets away if the wind is blowing in the right direction.
2 simple facts to consider. 1 as we’ve pointed out there’s a lot less of them nowadays and 2 they’ll move when they are ready to and not before
 
The lack of competition might change their response to feed.
 
Adrian Mitchell said:
Good point Damien.I always understood that the point of regular feeding was to create competion amongst feeding fish to overcome their natural caution in taking the hookbait.
Click to expand...
It's often referred as the 'bait and wait approach', but the waiting is given to waiting for that competition to occur whilst not fishing, not as is sometimes thought, whilst fishing.
 
I remember Fred Crouch saying Barbel do not smell but they must be able to smell to pick up a piece of meat in 12ft of floodwater on the Severn sometimes in minutes. Trevor West mentioned barbel smelling in his book. He also mentioned if dogs have such good smell why do they always smell each others bums. I remember Stuart Morgan on his videos Barbel up close and personal, showing Barbel moving some distance (80 yds ?) very quickly for a quality bait. Obviously if the fish are used to picking up a quality bait without getting caught on it will be more easily moved. Sewage and chemicals have been around for many years in our rivers so probably not a thing that has changed recently that would effect smell. I know some of my local Thames sewage works have been dumping filth over 20 years due to data that was available. But its quite possible they have been dumping since they first built. I did hear of a barbel moving 11 miles overnight back when fish were being dye marked for a mid 80's project. Its maybe not how far they will move for bait its possibly how hungry or how attracted to your bait when they are in the area. I used to use a very strong smelling bait that drew fish to it very quickly. The downside was it blew quickly, which I wanted having limited time on waters.
 
Probably about 10 or more years ago I hadn't renewed my Verulam ticket by opening day and had had a couple of good sessions upstream in some free water. The upper Lea, there's an old ford, now with a footbridge over my son and I stood on. Dropped no more than 20 6mm halibut pellets to guage the reaction of a shoal of dace and roach, all I had to hand. They mostly scattered but within a couple of minutes there was a very visible back out the water fish heading towards us on the bridge through the shallow water on the right.
Went straight to where the pellets had settled and started tearing up the bottom.
Saw it coming from at least 50yrds downstream, further is not accessible.
 
Richard Isaacs said:
I’d say they can pick up the scent of your bait from quite a long way down stream. Probably further than we think.
I can certainly smell the bbq cooking from 2 streets away if the wind is blowing in the right direction.
2 simple facts to consider. 1 as we’ve pointed out there’s a lot less of them nowadays and 2 they’ll move when they are ready to and not before
Click to expand...
Good point about the BBQ Richard, but can you also smell the salad? :)
This pretty well illustrates that a barbels effective distance at smelling a bait depends mainly on the bait being used.
 
I can see that they might have a taste for spring onions, the floods of 2007 and 2012 saw thousands of bunches of spring onions washed into the Warks Avon from the Vale of Evesham.
Don't know if the Barbel can or cannot taste, but it does have sophisticated sensors on those barbules, and certainly samples food before engulfing.
 
Graham Elliott said:
I was actually serious.

Many bait companies add mexican onion oil to their boilies

ricarpfishing.blogspot.com

New Bait Discovery.....Wild Onion Bulbs

These wild onion bulbs were sticking out of the soil. Could they be an effective bait? Man, I made a major discovery yesterday while ca...
ricarpfishing.blogspot.com ricarpfishing.blogspot.com
Click to expand...
Well yeah, garlic is a member of the onion family and we know how good that can be as a flavour. But I've never heard of anyone using a clove of garlic as a bait. But then maybe it's an ultra cult super-secret bait eh, that gives them 'the edge'. 🤣🧄🤣
PS.... to anyone who is less than 100% sure, no I've never tried cucumber, or spring onion, on the hook. :rolleyes:
 
Carp suck up a whole range of stuff and eject what they cant or wont eat, the fact that there is a hook in the mix is key. Tench caught on twigs was a thing on AN a few years back.
 
Terry Simner said:
Well yeah, garlic is a member of the onion family and we know how good that can be as a flavour. But I've never heard of anyone using a clove of garlic as a bait. But then maybe it's an ultra cult super-secret bait eh, that gives them 'the edge'. 🤣🧄🤣
PS.... to anyone who is less than 100% sure, no I've never tried cucumber, or spring onion, on the hook. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
:)
 
Neil Smart said:
:)
Click to expand...
I dont like where this thread is leading to.I thought B.F.W was an all inclusive discussion forum.However surely if everyone started using garlic cloves as bait,barbel would become preoccupied with feeding solely on that.This would mean that any of our B.F.W members from Transylvania who fish solely at night would be at a disadvantage.😜
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top