• 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...

pre-baiting

L

Leon Dodd

Senior Member
hi all,
looking for some thoughts on pre-baiting, i know of a stretch of river that has a good head of barbel, but, gets very little or no attention from serious barbel anglers, so i assume they don't see a lot of pellets/boilies, now i intend to give this stretch some serious attention this coming season and have been feeding approx. 5-6 handfuls of pellets per week, in 6 different areas for about 5 weeks and will continue to do so until the magical 16th, will this be enough to get the barbel looking for them or do i need to feed more or more regularly? or should i just fish meat and sod the pre-baiting? there is quite a good head of chub and silvers too so no doubt even if the barbel are not eating them they will not be going to waste. any thoughts???
cheers, leon
 
In the 'Barbel Up Close and Personal DVD's' they bait an area that can't actually be fished because of the overgrown banks, but ambush the fish with a different bait as they move from their holding area to the prebaited area. The idea is to get them feeding confidently and not to spook them off this bait by using it on the hook.
 
Anthony Pearson said:
In the 'Barbel Up Close and Personal DVD's' they bait an area that can't actually be fished because of the overgrown banks, but ambush the fish with a different bait as they move from their holding area to the prebaited area. The idea is to get them feeding confidently and not to spook them off this bait by using it on the hook.
Click to expand...

Gracious - those tactics are almost SAS-like. And I thought angling was supposed to be simple? :D
 
Anthony Pearson said:
...ambush the fish with a different bait as they move from their holding area to the prebaited area.....
Click to expand...
This means you need a bait that works already!

Last couple of times I tried pre-baiting a deserted section of a yorkshire river all I attracted was hundreds of Chub!
 
hi all,
thanks for the replies guys, i guess i'll just keep going and see how it turns out, after all you don't know if you don't try.
cheers, leon
 
Your probably just wasting your time prebaiting with pellets, everything will eat them, even minnows, the chances are, roach, dace ,chub etc hoover them up before a barbel gets a look in! Your best bet would be something more selective, boilies do the job, but are more expensive, chick peas work, especially dyed/flavoured, and stop a lot of the small fish attention, then switch to boilies/pellets when fishing, its all about attracting the species you want to catch, not everything that swims!
peter
P.S. tried the baiting with pellets approach on the Thames, total waste of time, the bream/roach loved it though.
 
Hey Leon
The river i fish people have been think its getting shallow because of lack of rain!....
But its the tons of boilies ive been putting in the river:] since march!!

jamie
 
i am thinking of doing some pre-baiting now on a piece of the severn near me. do you think i should include some pieces of meat amongst the pellets (i will be feeding a mixture of 10-16 mm)
 
Hi Leon, You will need to observe when pre-baiting and actually spot the barbel feeding otherwise as already said you will be just feeding every fish that swims..:eek:..If possible try to pre-bait only in swims where you can see what comes along..Also you could try pre-baiting with lots of hemp and other particles, the idea being that the other fish will move in first which will then get the barbels attention and once they know that food is in a particular place fairly regular they will bully the other fish out..
 
Leon Dodd said:
hi all,
looking for some thoughts on pre-baiting, i know of a stretch of river that has a good head of barbel, but, gets very little or no attention from serious barbel anglers, so i assume they don't see a lot of pellets/boilies, now i intend to give this stretch some serious attention this coming season and have been feeding approx. 5-6 handfuls of pellets per week, in 6 different areas for about 5 weeks and will continue to do so until the magical 16th, will this be enough to get the barbel looking for them or do i need to feed more or more regularly? or should i just fish meat and sod the pre-baiting? there is quite a good head of chub and silvers too so no doubt even if the barbel are not eating them they will not be going to waste. any thoughts???
cheers, leon
Click to expand...

I think you've basically got it right Leon, but as the season approaches i would narrow down your baiting to just one area, or you'll just be splitting the fish, if catching numbers of barbel is your target, your fishing will benifit by creating competition.
To throw a complication into the equation, the Barbel will shortly be spawning, and no amount of baiting will hold them from their urges, but doing what you're doing will achieve the first essential of pre baiting and thats the recognition of your bait.
Once the season starts if you've narrowed down your baiting area, the Barbel will be 'coming home' from their spawning areas, once you start to catch, don't hammer your swim, bait an area a few yards up or downstream for your next session, so you don't create danger spots, as the season progresses you can move up and down the river, taking the fish with you provided you don't make jumps of many hundreds of yards in one go.
Don't change your basic bait, though tweaking the flavours a little helps stop the barbel recognising it as a danger, such as if you are using pellet, soak them in cod liver oil for a few sessions, then use say salmon oil, then say halibut, you get my drift............. oh by the way - maybe you don't need telling - Shhhhhhh ! if not many fish the area best keep it that way ;)

Ian.
 
Jamie Armitage said:
Hey Leon
The river i fish people have been think its getting shallow because of lack of rain!....
But its the tons of boilies ive been putting in the river:] since march!!

jamie
Click to expand...


ha ha...thankfully the fish I'm trying to catch can't traverse the weirs to reach the bit you fish :D
 
I am personally going to concentrate on the stretch just upstream from the spawning beds, with about 10-20 droppers of mainly hemp and corn in a couple of swims per day, i have already seen the barbel in these swims.
I have always observed the barbel dropping back towards their spawning area and beginning to aggregate many weeks prior to spawning, and just hanging around. I am hoping that they hang around for a bit post spawning aswell and that my bait going in everyday will convince them to hang around untill the 16th.
Then its jackpot time. I can't fail.:rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
From what i have experienced George, once the big girls have spawned theygo straight back home. However the litte males hang about quite a bit longer.
 
Jon Frisby said:
From what i have experienced George, once the big girls have spawned theygo straight back home. However the litte males hang about quite a bit longer.
Click to expand...

Jon, I'm not saying you're wrong but after every spawning I've witnessed the females hang around for 7-10 days protecting their prospective progeny.
Often violently, especially in the first few day post-spawning, even butting chub in their flanks and of more recent times, actually flicking large signal crayfish away from their clutch with their noses.

That said they do fan out gradually (maybe moreso on bigger rivers?) and don't remain constantly in-situ around the redds after 48hrs or so but are often close by.
 
The problem i experienced last season is that their 'home' that had produced so well for me in the past didn't produce a single fish all season, and i believed that the otter had got them all (only one fish taken in the previouse season...and a big girl for the river at almost 9lb). However carefull stalking and feeding last month revealed that there are a few fish still in residence...but 200yrds downstream, far closer to the beds.
I believe this to be caused by lower summer flows due to works carried out on the weir upstream, increasing its height and holding back more water. This has dramatically decreased the flow through their normal stretch.
In my view this has confused the remaining barbel somewhat...which in turn confused me somewhat (i am apparently at the very bottom of that hierarchy...bit depressing).
Anyway to cut a long story short i am not sure the barbel really know where their home is as the remaining water is far from 'barbelly' in all but a couple of swims...these are the swims mentioned in my previous post and are where i have observed the fish recently...hopefully my bait can encourage them to move into this stretch more permanently and more importantly just settle down...which i think is something they need to do if they are to repopulate.
It is a tiny trib of the bristol avon and there aren't many other places they can go, their old home is still the best looking barbel swim on the stretch by a mile, but they seem to have completely deserted it of late, possibly siltation but i may never work out why.
its a tricky one but i remain confident of a far improved catch from this lovely little river this season if my hunch proves correct.
 
Last edited:
Dilemas !! :p
It'd be boring if we knew exactly what they were up to all the time, and they were crawling up our rods.
The answers are simple....... Yeah right !!
But seriously if your not catching, then there are only two reasons, they are either not there or they're refusing to take your bait.
So first you look at your tactics, then your bait...... always the last if you know it catches well, if you're still not catching then they're not there, and you've got to go and find 'em, and that can be the really hard bit.

You could write a book on this subject, and only scratch the surface !

Great fun

Ian.
 
hi all,
thanks for the replies and advice.
as much as i would love to observe the swims i am baiting it is impossible, as in common with most yorkshire rivers, you can't see the bottom in more than a foot of water, but i know from past experience there are barbel along the whole of this stretch,(in summer at least). the idea behind baiting more than one swim is that i will be rotating the swims when the season starts hopefully taking a fish from each swim and then moving on to the next or after half an hour with no indications, a bit more bait and move on, with luck i won't disturb the barbel too much and i'll manage to catch a couple.
bait recognition is the reason i originally decided to pre-bait, i'm hopefully using a bait they haven't seen before so i wanted the fish to rcognise it as a food source with no danger attatched. only time will tell and i'll keep you all informed!
ROLL ON THE 16th, leon
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top