The hard bit her is the first law. Ok on a clear summer river that's fairly shallow with a good head of fish. What about deep water with few fish? Or even deep water with many fish?
I think the " barbel are simple" view overlook's one or two important points that the more "scientific", for want of a better word, anglers haven't. The best example I can think of is Tony Miles book Elite Barbel and the in depth chapters on Kickles Farm. The success he had Tony put down entirely to developing a HNV bait that the barbel would actively search out. Would he have still caught these fish if he had been pre baiting with meat or corn? It's impossible to answer that but the evidence strongly suggests the barbel actively looked for a "special" bait.
Mostly, it seems, simple tactics and bait work well but there are times when a different approach is called for and sparsley populated stretches would appear to be one of these circumstances
Keeping it simple has always been my philosophy, unnecessarily complicating my approach could, and probably would make my fishing harder not easier in my opinion, but...... there are complications thrown into the equation whether we like it or not, ignoring them, and not factoring them into my fishing will equally make my fishing harder.
The biggest of these factors is the FACT that fish, - Barbel are no exception - have a capability to recognise danger, and when repeatedly presented with certain 'dangers' will by association learn to recognise them and avoid them.
One major factor nowadays from when Dick Walker was in his fishing prime is that nowadays a barbel or any fish for that matter, wont get a smack on the head when reaching specimen size, we now put them back,( recent newcommers to our society excepted ) and so they live to fight another day, and will certainly learn from that experience, and as they learn, they WILL become more difficult to catch, especially when anglers rely on methods the fish have seen time, and time, and time again, even so sometimes the most simple changes to your approach can have the most dramatic effect, and once again trip those cute fish up.
But these complications, are whats makes fishing fun for me, i know i would lose interest fairly quickly if every time i went out i caught, like continually playing chess with novices and beating them everytime, there would be - for me anyway very little satisfaction in partaking, even to the point of it all becomeing pointless and boring.
Because we do what we do, and each day there are thousands, and thousands out there doing it, we have arrived at the inevitable situation where we are fishing for fish educated by us, that have at least when they reach an advanced age, - not always comensurate with size - learnt to deal with our methods to catch them, which is why some find it so difficult to catch their quarry, refusing to depart from time honoured methods, i.e putting a couple of grains of sweetcorn on a hook, with a tin full of the same as loose feed, rod tip bent to the lead, on a clear gravel patch in broad daylight - to use an extreme hypothetical example, on many pressured stretches of river the fish wised up to that years ago, as they learn so must we, and is what i find fun and drives my enjoyment.
Ray Walton is pretty succsessful in his fishing, and i'm pretty sure if there are what some people like Ade regard as complications in his methods, and approach, they are there because he finds they work, i'm pretty sure they've evolved as a result of years of experimentation, Ade if you don't like Rays approach ( not for me either ! ) then don't use them, you don't even have to read about them, or go to any of his presentations, just fish in the way you prefer and enjoy, but there's no point in blaming other anglers or organisations for the reasons that fish are harder to catch than in days gone by, that fault - if it is one - lays at all our feet, even our fathers and their fathers maybe, it's a natural progression, and a cycle that will carry on forever more. The only way to break it, would be to ban fishing for at least 10 years, and allow a new generation of fish to come through which will be ignorant of people trying to catch them, and when the methods of old will once again be brilliant to catch Barbel with.
I think if Dick was with us today, he would be at the forefront in coming up with tactics to fool those cute fish, as he always did in his time.
Ian.
