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Small leads and short hooklinks

Etienne Harvey said:
The river Chew in Keynsham was the first river i fished that held a variety of coarse fish. Before that i was only able to fish my local Cam brook which only had trout and minnows. We used to fish in the park in Keynsham from the weir to where it joins the Bristol Avon as it was free to fish. On occasion I'd even catch a flounder here. Another favourite spot was the weir in Keynsham (Jackie whites if I'm not mistaken) on the Bristol Avon as again another free spot that held massive bream and good chub and eel fishing. These places are where I learnt to fish as a kid. I did hear recently that there's been a stocking of barbel on the river Chew. Hopefully they do well there and breed.
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the first river i fished was the chew as well . used to catch huge roach in the park .
i think there was a barbel stocking a few years back , i had 3 from the weir last season.
i only live a ten minute drive away, so it’s handy .
 
Etienne Harvey said:
The river Chew in Keynsham was the first river i fished that held a variety of coarse fish. Before that i was only able to fish my local Cam brook which only had trout and minnows. We used to fish in the park in Keynsham from the weir to where it joins the Bristol Avon as it was free to fish. On occasion I'd even catch a flounder here. Another favourite spot was the weir in Keynsham (Jackie whites if I'm not mistaken) on the Bristol Avon as again another free spot that held massive bream and good chub and eel fishing. These places are where I learnt to fish as a kid. I did hear recently that there's been a stocking of barbel on the river Chew. Hopefully they do well there and breed.
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All my old stomping grounds Etienne, yes there were barbel stocked in Keynsham, probably found their way into the Avon, well certainly I would say, upper Chew too shallow imo.
I am old as dirt, and used to fish Shepherds Boat House weir Keynsham before Barbel were a thing, trout and even the odd salmon were present.
Happy memories.
 
Mike Hodgkiss said:
I can see the sense in this Neil, but I very rarely put any feed in preferring to fish a single large smelly bait , the only exception being when fishing maggots in winter when I will use a feeder full of maggots . I primarily fish the Yorkshire Ouse , feeding lots of pellets , groundbait , boilies simply attracts Bream and small chub which abound in the river , particularly in the warmer months . I believe that a large smelly bait is sufficient attraction to bring the Barbel in to my swim , I want to catch them not fill them full of freebies !
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Horses for courses, when I fish half a tin of spam on a hook, its an 18” hooklength 🙂
 
All I know is reducing the hooklink to 18" - 2' has made no difference to my catches. I am not saying it never will but I think it is very often unnecessary. Clear river, wary fish hanging well back then maybe. But after dark, coloured water I doubt it. Yes I know the main point is to stop the fish contacting the line but there are other options such as backleads if found necessary. I know people who use short hooklinks of 12" and you cannot argue with their results. As always an open mind is paramount. 👍
 
Mike Hodgkiss said:
With a 1/2 oz lead and a metre plus extra water I am presuming your lead wasn't sufficient to hold bottom and your bait/rig simply settled in the calmer water near the edge . I have often found that in high water conditions Barbel will come in very close to the edge of the river , often literally under your rod tip .Perhaps your bait had simply landed where the current took it and thats where the fish was, keeping out of the main flow , saving energy, and waiting for the food to come to it . As for hook length , In normal conditions I tend to fish a longer distance between hook and lead and keep my rod tip low to avoid line bites that can spook fish . In high water conditions I tend to use a shorter distance as a bait on say a 3ft hook length held down by a heavy lead will tend to waft around unnaturally in a strong flow , where as with a shorter hook length, maybe a foot or so it should stay static on the bottom .
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That's really interesting to read that a 3ft hook length held down with a heavy lead will waft around in a strong flow.. .....that's really made me think!
I have always used longer hooklengths in stronger flow.......I generally use lead and pva bags, so I kind of assumed the bait would wash further downstream thus meaning using a longer hooklength........but after reading this thread seemingly not the case
 
Mike Hodgkiss said:
With a 1/2 oz lead and a metre plus extra water I am presuming your lead wasn't sufficient to hold bottom and your bait/rig simply settled in the calmer water near the edge . I have often found that in high water conditions Barbel will come in very close to the edge of the river , often literally under your rod tip .Perhaps your bait had simply landed where the current took it and thats where the fish was, keeping out of the main flow , saving energy, and waiting for the food to come to it . As for hook length , In normal conditions I tend to fish a longer distance between hook and lead and keep my rod tip low to avoid line bites that can spook fish . In high water conditions I tend to use a shorter distance as a bait on say a 3ft hook length held down by a heavy lead will tend to waft around unnaturally in a strong flow , where as with a shorter hook length, maybe a foot or so it should stay static on the bottom .
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Apologies, I probably wasn’t clear on the water level.

It’s normally at 1.1m and rose 5” over the weekend so went over 1.2m and was dropping when I got there.
 
Gavin Burt said:
Apologies, I probably wasn’t clear on the water level.

It’s normally at 1.1m and rose 5” over the weekend so went over 1.2m and was dropping when I got there.
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I wish there was a metre of water on it 😄😄.. or even 50cm !!! It's shockingly low and little flow .

I always use the lightest lead I can get away with . With the stretches of Avon I fish it can be 3/4oz to an 1oz at present .. I don't like the thud of big leads and feeders.
 
Interesting to read the above comments from everyone.

I was back on the W.Avon at the weekend and fished the same setup again and had another barbel within 45-mins.

Certainly the way forward for me I think on that particular stretch.
 
Yes it
Barry Peck said:
I wish there was a metre of water on it 😄😄.. or even 50cm !!! It's shockingly low and little flow .

I always use the lightest lead I can get away with . With the stretches of Avon I fish it can be 3/4oz to an 1oz at present .. I don't like the thud of big leads and feeders real low
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Agreed, it’s been really low the last few years up until Winter time.

Match catches (I look at the results but don’t fish matches) are really poor which isn’t a good thing either. I used to spot the Barbel off the bridge that goes into the village around the end of May but haven’t seen any for the last two seasons.

On a separate note, my friend had three 2~3lb fish a few weeks ago which is a really positive sign.

There’s also some 5lb+ chub in that stretch too.

It’s a great bit of water but the amount of matches frustrate many pleasure anglers. Unless you’re taking time off work mid-week (or want to fish Sundays) as soon as the clocks change it’s hard to get out there and fish.
 
Barry Peck said:
I wish there was a metre of water on it 😄😄.. or even 50cm !!! It's shockingly low and little flow .

I always use the lightest lead I can get away with . With the stretches of Avon I fish it can be 3/4oz to an 1oz at present .. I don't like the thud of big leads and feeders.
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Jack Harmer said:
I’ve found through experience that a liner from a barbel can often look like a chub pluck.
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Once you've experienced these a few times they are very obviously Barbel aren't they. 👍
 
Stephen Goderski said:
How do you know?
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Simply through experience. I was guiding on the Trent last week. I put a client into a swim and sat behind him. He struck at a good Chub pluck and I told him it was a liner. A recast and the same happened within minutes. I told him not to react until the rod bends over. A few more liners told me, they were ignoring the boilies, so I told him to reel in and I changed to a simple meat rig. He cast into the same spot and just as he put the rod in the rest, it was almost pulled out of his hands. A good scrap later and the net was slipped under a 14.4 pristine barbel.
 
I really can’t be arsed getting into an argument about this but can you just tell me how you can tell the difference between a chub pull and a line bite caused by a barbel. To avoid any doubt, I would be amazed if anyone could tell the difference so this is not something aimed just at you.

Steve
 
Stephen Goderski said:
I really can’t be arsed getting into an argument about this but can you just tell me how you can tell the difference between a chub pull and a line bite caused by a barbel. To avoid any doubt, I would be amazed if anyone could tell the difference so this is not something aimed just at you.

Steve
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I thought the clue was in my last answer. Hook me up and I’ll take you out and put you in a swim, where it will all be made clear as you experience it first hand. No argument, just a simple discussion.
 
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