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Small, low stock rivers and big barbel

Christian Tyroll

Christian Tyroll

Senior Member & Supporter
Afternoon all

Don't know about anyone else but a month in to the close season and I'm itching to get back, the delirium is starting 🥴

I'm interested to hear from those who fish small rivers, for a small stock of big fish. Places like the Nene, Ouse, Lea, Kennet, Loddon, Colne etc.

Do people find them catchable in the daytime?

Who has a preference for roving, or sitting it out in one spot?

I'm sure a lot of this has been done to death in the past but the rivers are different places than even 5 years ago. Some places are throwing up big fish again (or perhaps queitly always were).

I'm not after anything specific, just to hear about what has worked for people and what hasn't in recent years.

My limited experience in recent years has seen a few fish caught by fishing over a small amount of boilies, say between 5 and 10. But I'm interested in putting a pint or two of hemp out amongst it in the warmer weather, just to get small fish activity going and a good bit of smell going downstream.

All the best

Christian
 
On the areas of the Lea I fish you can happily sit all day and catch all day but the fish seem to be a smaller average size (4-6lb), stalking in the evenings or early mornings definitely seems to bring out the larger fish but equally one chance and that area is done for a while.

I plan to try for bigger fish next season, a lot more moving, searching and trap style fishing. Last season 95% of my barbel were caught trotting a float. Hemp definitely seems to be the key in that instance. I had my best days trotting a banded pellet and feeding a pinch of hemp, then some pellets each run through.
 
Love this point. "Some places are throwing up big fish again (or perhaps queitly always were)". I think that's probably the case. In some places I know it's the case.

I think if you can fish mid-week and target areas generally quieter then you can stumble on small groups of fish. Roving about must help this scenario? Some hemp in the close season is a good way to find them. Drop it in, go for walk, come back in an hour and see what's sniffing about. Boilies in summer seem less effective than a smaller pellet though in my experience.
 
Christian Tyroll said:
Afternoon all

Don't know about anyone else but a month in to the close season and I'm itching to get back, the delirium is starting 🥴

I'm interested to hear from those who fish small rivers, for a small stock of big fish. Places like the Nene, Ouse, Lea, Kennet, Loddon, Colne etc.

Do people find them catchable in the daytime?

Who has a preference for roving, or sitting it out in one spot?

I'm sure a lot of this has been done to death in the past but the rivers are different places than even 5 years ago. Some places are throwing up big fish again (or perhaps queitly always were).

I'm not after anything specific, just to hear about what has worked for people and what hasn't in recent years.

My limited experience in recent years has seen a few fish caught by fishing over a small amount of boilies, say between 5 and 10. But I'm interested in putting a pint or two of hemp out amongst it in the warmer weather, just to get small fish activity going and a good bit of smell going downstream.

All the best

Christian
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Christian. My fishing has always been daytime 1. not a fan of night fishing and 2. limited time being a semi - carer! for my wife, means short trips during the day. SO, yes they are caught in the day time, on the kennet and Loddon, however over the last five years or so as you say the numbers of fish has declined sufficiently to mean long time between bites. I haven't found the use of hemp in this period to be worth much. Until 2018, catches could still be made fishing caster over hemp; now even small silvers are not there in numbers either; it is more likely a crayfish being caught. The few fish caught are of a far larger average size, with very few back up fish.
In summer roving is my preferred style; until a fish is caught; then I will stay put, hoping a few fish may be in situ. But, a very big BUT, that still equates to long walks and effort for very little return nowadays.
I still will carry on fishing these river for their barbel, hoping that there is a reversal of this decline; even if it is after my years fishing have past. Health issues are going to prevent many more years fishing for me; the dreams of the past have to keep me going.
 
Most of my formative years barbel fishing were on the Cherwell, which was always the classic low stock, good average size river. As with all low stock rivers location was the most important thing and they weren't particularly hard to catch once located, the hemp/maggot approach being very successful both in daylight and after dark. Some areas were good for locating by sight but I tended to fish different areas until some barbel were found. I think these days rivers like the Gt Ouse, Kennet, Warks Avon, all previously with a good head of barbel, would now come under the low stock density category. As probably would the Thames even. The best book I have ever read on this type of angling is Tony Miles' Elite Barbel, where the target fish were gradually weaned onto a very high protein bait that had the power to draw fish from a long way. Tony, as most of us know, was an excellent angler and writer, and that book makes no bones about just how difficult this type of fishing can be.
 
Christian Tyroll said:
Afternoon all

Don't know about anyone else but a month in to the close season and I'm itching to get back, the delirium is starting 🥴

I'm interested to hear from those who fish small rivers, for a small stock of big fish. Places like the Nene, Ouse, Lea, Kennet, Loddon, Colne etc.

Do people find them catchable in the daytime?

Who has a preference for roving, or sitting it out in one spot?

I'm sure a lot of this has been done to death in the past but the rivers are different places than even 5 years ago. Some places are throwing up big fish again (or perhaps queitly always were).

I'm not after anything specific, just to hear about what has worked for people and what hasn't in recent years.

My limited experience in recent years has seen a few fish caught by fishing over a small amount of boilies, say between 5 and 10. But I'm interested in putting a pint or two of hemp out amongst it in the warmer weather, just to get small fish activity going and a good bit of smell going downstream.

All the best

Christian
Click to expand...

I love fishing hard low stock rivers for the challenge, and this is all stuff I’ve posted before so nothing new, but is my real experience…mainly late afternoon into evening sessions.
My experience in the last few years on the Ouse after low stock big fish is of doing a lot of observing, prebaiting and lots of feature finding, and enduring many blanks because sometimes I got things wrong! I’ve made 4 very important conclusions that in practice have rewarded me with 4 very decent fish:
1. Find the fish…where they reside and where they feed/patrol etc
2. Once you’ve found them do not prebait or fish the snags/places they feel comfortable in…do this and the fish very quickly move somewhere else
3. Choose a bait you have confidence in
4. Apply the bait sparingly away from the their ‘home’ but somewhere you’ve seen them feed/patrol - this is also where you should fish…do not pressure them in their ‘home’

Just my experience based on what I’ve read others advise on….so nothing original but can honestly say actively putting this into practice has really worked but it took many many hours of not fishing and just doing the groundwork
 
I think it’s one of those things that can be very rewarding but if you’re not careful a real soul-crusher.

I fish Fishers Green on and off and it sits somewhere between challenge and absolute nightmare. I’ve mentioned elsewhere I recently fished it 17 times for zilch (apart from the odd minnow and crayfish). I did three nights back to back and apart from a huge splash in the dark, nada. Now, I know 17 blanks are rookie numbers; blanking is somewhat the norm and I met an old chap there last season who’d fished it every week the entire previous season for a blank. The look in his eyes was telling.

On the plus side, it’s a beautiful stretch of river and considering it holds record breaking barbel and chub it’s usually not that busy. It also has a strange, magnetic pull, due in part to its rock hard nature.
 
Low quantities of barbel on any size of river can be a needle in a haystack until you’ve done a bit of homework on the river itself because in the daylight hours they do tend not to move about as much but it’s fairly easy to narrow down the search by understanding what they actually need.

I’d be looking for oxygenated water as a priority. Something pacy and a little turbulent. With some decent cover or that drops off into some decent depth where they can sit but not feel exposed in the sunlight.

The number 1 feature for any real day time success has got to be a weir pool. Which isn’t uncommon knowledge and isn’t always accessible but swims just down stream from the weir pool can equally house barbel if the oxygen and cover are there.

No weir pool to go at……? then look for the faster turbulent glides and where they can provide some cover. Under cut banks, drop offs, large quantities of streamer weed, over hanging bushes or trees. If you can find good quantities of cover over pacy well oxygenated water then I would say you are in with as good a chance as any.

Finally from my own experience don’t dismiss a moving bait. So many people do and it’s criminal because barbel are not picking things up off the floor in fast well oxygenated swims at any time of the day.
Throw a boilie in the river and tell me it just nicely sits on the river bed….. at night in slower paced swims this can be successful but during the day when their heads are upstream in the current their food comes to them.

I catch them on the float on the nene all in the sunlight and I used to fish the ivel and G Ouse a lot and catch them on rolling baits or nudge them down under a little float.

Moving baits in the daytime can destroy statics if you can present them in the right way through those perfect daytime swims.
 
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I've fished the Loddon for the past 10 years and have seen a huge decline in the barbel catch rate. This has coincided with a huge rise in the number of signal crayfish that have now populated the whole river.

5-6 years ago a fish every other trip was the average. The fish were usually 13lb plus. These days 1 fish in a season seems good going.

They are still there to catch - look at Mark Erdwin's Loddon video from this season.

My go to tactic was light baiting with boilies on arrival and fish a boilies on a hair. I would often leave the rod out for 6 hours or more util either I had a bite or it was time to go home. The majority of bites would come between 11pm - 12am. With the crayfish present, it's almost impossible to leave a bait in the water for more than an hour which has made that tactic pretty much useless.

So I think they are still there but a lot harder to catch now.
 
There’s some really interesting stuff here, thank you all for the replies.

I have joined a small stretch that is known to hold decent size fish. At about half a mile long, it has 7 or 8 spots that I thought look particularly good fish holding areas. Parts of it can be discounted quickly when there’s some water clarity.

I am imagining they will either not be in the stretch all season, or are very good at making themselves scarce. Alan, your point about not spooking them in their home is one I will bear in mind. The river is so little though that I can imagine not doing this will still only be fishing a rod length or two from a hidie hole.

I’ll let you all know how I get on.
 
Daniel Jeffery said:
I think it’s one of those things that can be very rewarding but if you’re not careful a real soul-crusher.

I fish Fishers Green on and off and it sits somewhere between challenge and absolute nightmare. I’ve mentioned elsewhere I recently fished it 17 times for zilch (apart from the odd minnow and crayfish). I did three nights back to back and apart from a huge splash in the dark, nada. Now, I know 17 blanks are rookie numbers; blanking is somewhat the norm and I met an old chap there last season who’d fished it every week the entire previous season for a blank. The look in his eyes was telling.

On the plus side, it’s a beautiful stretch of river and considering it holds record breaking barbel and chub it’s usually not that busy. It also has a strange, magnetic pull, due in part to its rock hard nature.
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I only fished Fishers Green a couple of times but had that exact same feeling. It was well before this boom and it had the feeling you could easily go a season and not catch. It was too much for me at the time, too many questions and not enough confidence on my part. Hopefully that special one comes along for you this year.
 
I fished a beautiful old estate lake near Dunmow. Passing just one angler who said he had been there for 4 days without a bite. When the bailiff came to take the money, I recounted this and he repleid." Oh thats nothing, some people fish her 25 times before they get a bite let alone a fish"
No, I have not been back.. Very beautiful place though!
 
Alec Hague said:
I fished a beautiful old estate lake near Dunmow. Passing just one angler who said he had been there for 4 days without a bite. When the bailiff came to take the money, I recounted this and he repleid." Oh thats nothing, some people fish her 25 times before they get a bite let alone a fish"
No, I have not been back.. Very beautiful place though!
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I can guess where that is !

I fished it in the 80’s. It was hard work then too. Moved on to the Lea valley pits and a mate fished one for about 5 years without a bite. He was reasonably competent too - a Savay syndicate member.
 
Alex Gowney said:
The best book I have ever read on this type of angling is Tony Miles' Elite Barbel, where the target fish were gradually weaned onto a very high protein bait that had the power to draw fish from a long way. Tony, as most of us know, was an excellent angler and writer, and that book makes no bones about just how difficult this type of fishing can be.
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Have to say I would also echo this. Best barbel book I've ever read. Tony used John Baker's Supermilk with Ala Salar and also caught some huge bonus chub. I would start to trickle the bait in as soon as you can. A few boilies in each likely looking spot and then cut it back to one or two spots as the start of the season approaches. Moderation is the key!
He fished a very simple rig. A lead on a clip to a 8 inch length of Drennan Dacron to a size 6 Drennan Continental Boilie tied on with a knotless knot.
 
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