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Silt

Chris Thomson

Chris Thomson

Senior Member
Hi , with large areas of the Hants Avon losing gravel runs/patches and being replaced with sandy type silt especially after recent years of heavy flooding whats peoples thoughts on fishing on these silty areas? Its not the silt that you get on lakes which is stinking black sludge from years of leaf and weed die back this is more of fine sandy type , whats your thoughts ?
 
The areas i come across are more sandy feeling than silt and as long as near cover seems ok to fish. Although mostly Chub for me this year tbh!
 
Once on the Wandle I was trudging towards home after blanking. I looked over a wall at a swim I always ignored as it has zero cover and a very silty bottom. Right in front of me was a barbel feeding in the silt. I couldn’t believe it. I quickly headed upstream, cast out and saved a blank. Ergo, give it a go.
 
Daniel Jeffery said:
Once on the Wandle I was trudging towards home after blanking. I looked over a wall at a swim I always ignored as it has zero cover and a very silty bottom. Right in front of me was a barbel feeding in the silt. I couldn’t believe it. I quickly headed upstream, cast out and saved a blank. Ergo, give it a go.
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Thats what i'm on about , are we gravel obsessed that we only feel confident fishing on gravel ?
 
I think they will feed wherever they can find food and siltbeds are often full of invertebrates do why wouldn’t they
There was an underwater video filmed some yrs ago on either the Ouse or W.Avon (think it was a Clean River production… Guy Rob??) of barbel feeding in silt… really troughing through it like carp do.
 
I would think that gravel presents limited opportunities for finding food. Some invertebrates are present for sure, but many other life forms require a different habitat, with silt offering far more chances of success to a hunting fish. Sacrilege I know, but Hey 🤣
Having said that, rivers where barbel are usually found are fast running, gravel bottomed by nature, with minimum silt deposits, so barbel would obviously be adapted to that habitat. However, that need not mean that they wont take advantage of silt where it does exist.
 
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Riverfly testing a number of rivers you find compacted gravel almost everywhere. You get very few Invertebrates in these compacted areas and its very hard kick sampling. Ten metres away you might find a patch of soft silty sand or under any patch of weed will be a big patch of fine silt/sand. These areas are often full of invertebrates and easy to kick sample. Fish must target these areas rather than the compacted stuff. If you find compacted gravel it rarely shows any signs of having been fed over-- algae or cleaned stones. Though spawning times sometimes see clean patches. About 15 years ago I found a very reliable spot on a local river. The area behind a run of trees was very deep stinking silt and awkward to get to. If you freelined a bait on top of the silt in 1ft of water and sat back quietly Barbel would often work their way up the silt bank, pick it up and race back to the deeper water. It was really exciting watching them work their way to the bait and the bites were spectacular.
 
When I fished a stretch of the Lea you could see the barbel gliding across the gravels but they would never take a bait there …if you pulled the bait back into the edge of the silt the rod would wrap round immediately ..I reckon they had been hammered on the gravel so we’re really cautious about feeding there
 
Really interesting question... @Chris Thomson

I remember there was a bit of underwater footage on the Barbel Days & Ways DVDs of a group of Barbel having a good grub about in a very silty marginal spot, with practically zero flow.

Generally speaking, it would be the last place you'd expect to find them, according to the 'textbooks', but there they were!

Just to caveat that, albeit with a single scenario, there's a quite well known holding spot on the Royalty that has filled with exactly the type of sandy substrate that you referenced. This occurred in last winter's floods. The depth, weed growth, etc hasn't drastically changed. It's just silty sand where there was once clean gravel. As far as I'm aware, it hasn't produced much more than a few juveniles this season. But I've caught in the next swim down and know of a few fish coming out in the next available swim upstream.

It'll be really interesting to see if this Winter's high water on the HAvon (assuming we get it for the same prolonged period, as is par for the course these days), clears the silty areas that are forming or exacerbates them... And if the swim in question does clear, whether it returns to its previous form!
 
Hi Alex , i've found that areas that got " silted" up on the Hants Avon last season are still silted over after this years flood , probably because in slacker water areas the sediment doesnt get the full force of the main flow , im guessing , so the next question i suppose is if we think those silty areas could be a viable proposition how do we fish them. Take a leaf out of the carp anglers book and fish a heli set up to present the bait on the upper layers or just drop a normal rig into it ? All interesting stuff !
 
My PB on the H.Avon came from a sand/silt swim one swim up from the swim that everyone else fishes and has a clear gravel patch. I was covered in thick black stinking silt after that fish, as the margin was a horror show of it among the cabbages.

I located that fish during daylight, it wasn’t actively feeding confidently but was clearly holding in the area. It took the bait about 40 minutes after the sun went down.

I think all too often we anglers can “make” the swim, there’s to many featureless popular swims close to the carpark that become the swim. Clearly we can’t see what’s hiding beneath the weed or under the snags and what makes a good home doesn’t make a good feeding station and we probably walk past many fish looking for the one we can see. Hanging the bait in a natural position where it would settle off the gravel run is a well known technique that works. Perhaps instead of thinking where would a Barbel live the better question is where would one feed. I’m sure we have all encountered the group of fish that won’t feed, if you are fortunate enough to identify multiple groups of Barbel on a stretch the next question for me is which group wants to eat and that’s the swim I’d pick over any other factor.

I used to bait areas I could observe, leave witnesses baits and come back. Sometimes even overnight to fish later in the day or week. Sometimes a textbook swim clearly was not a feeding spot which was baffling at times. Very time consuming working that way but it was effective when I had the ability to visit the fishery a lot but fish much less. My current tactic is awful… hahaha
 
Daniel Jeffery said:
Once on the Wandle I was trudging towards home after blanking. I looked over a wall at a swim I always ignored as it has zero cover and a very silty bottom. Right in front of me was a barbel feeding in the silt. I couldn’t believe it. I quickly headed upstream, cast out and saved a blank. Ergo, give it a go.
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One of my local stretches of the wandle is nothing but silt! Very slow stretch compared to others… caught plenty in the soft stuff over the years.

Also had a few from the Thames early autumn this year again over soft bottom whilst blanking on my other rod which was fished on gravel.
 
Neil Lumby said:
One of my local stretches of the wandle is nothing but silt! Very slow stretch compared to others… caught plenty in the soft stuff over the years.

Also had a few from the Thames early autumn this year again over soft bottom whilst blanking on my other rod which was fished on gravel.
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Normal rigs that you'd use over gravel ???
 
Chris Thomson said:
Normal rigs that you'd use over gravel ???
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Yes Chris most of the time I’m fishing standard running rigs with a supple braid hooklink, maybe 10- 12 inches that’s what I used on the wandle catching over silt. Funnily enough the few o had from the Thames were on semi fixed inline leads with fluoro hooklinks! Not ideal for softer bottoms you’d think but it worked a treat on those occasions.
 
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