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Low levels...where to fish?

Anthony Pearson

Anthony Pearson

Senior Member
I would suspect that the river levels are pretty low on many rivers at present (they are here in Yorkshire) so I was wondering what people's views are on how this affects the location of the fish and barbel in particular?
 
Water with a bit of pace on it, preferably after a riffle or weir that helps oxygenate the water. Depth not an issue at this time of year - fished a swim last week that was barely 12" deep and could see the Barbel moving up to the baited spot as they caused a bow wave on the surface as they came upsteam! Exciting stuff and an explosive fight in that depth of water when you hook one!
 
Definitely a lot better in well oxygenated water like Andrew has said but saying that I landed a good barbel and lost one in 6ft of water but with a good flow on it today on the trent.
 
Just waiting for the barbel police to turn up to say you shouldn't be fishing for barbel in low, hot conditions....any second now :D

Cheers, Dave.
 
Close to a weir, and unhook the fish in the water if safe to do so. Don't take it out for any unnecessary length of time.
 
Anthony

The general train of thought is that early season Barbel will not be far away from their spawning grounds which are the faster shallow areas that provide the clean and well oxygenated gravel that their eggs and fry require in order to develop.

Seek your quarry in the deeper holes/drop offs with overhead cover close to these areas for the first few weeks of the season after which the Barbel normally spread out and can then be caught throughout most of the river but the old saying "location location location" becomes even more important;)

Having said all that, the weather will often effect where the fish will live and Barbel will still normally be found in areas of good flow and oxygen levels especially in hot weather, whether that be shallow or deep water ;)

Hope that helps;)
 
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