Small/ medium river fishing - wait or rove

[Jim Brook]

My thoughts exactly. Trefor wrote that book when we had probably three or four times the number of barbel in our rivers that we have now.

Hi Alex, I’m relatively new to barbel fishing started 14 years ago, so my question is? Was there really upto 3 or 4 times more barbel in the Yorkshire rivers? Or do you mean generally? Only seen a slow decline in my time fishing for them in Yorkshire.

 

[Tim Marks]

Hi Alex, I’m relatively new to barbel fishing started 14 years ago, so my question is? Was there really upto 3 or 4 times more barbel in the Yorkshire rivers? Or do you mean generally? Only seen a slow decline in my time fishing for them in Yorkshire.

Trefor and to a lesser extent Tony Miles did much of their fishing around the time that their books came out on the Bristol Avon. The stock on that river now is probably 5 or (at best) 10 % of what it was in the early ‘90’s.

I was fishing there then and met Trefor on numerous occasions; 2 of my (then) close fishing mates fished with him on a regular basis.

One of those mates came up with a static fishing method that was so effective that Trefor memorably described it as ‘cheating’. We reckoned that it was 3x more effective than old style roving.

Obviously on a 2024, low stock river those statistics are irrelevant, but for what it is worth my current fishing mate and I tend to rove when we are ‘learning’ stretches and then only fish short sessions in the best spots in the best conditions, Many of my trips are less than 2 hours duration and usually only involve 1 or at most 2 swims. But it has to be said that many are blanks.

I’ve no idea whether staying there for 6 hours would have generated a bite; I somewhat doubt it…….

 

[Andrew Jackson]

Trefor and to a lesser extent Tony Miles did much of their fishing around the time that their books came out on the Bristol Avon. The stock on that river now is probably 5 or (at best) 10 % of what it was in the early ‘90’s.

I was fishing there then and met Trefor on numerous occasions; 2 of my (then) close fishing mates fished with him on a regular basis.

One of those mates came up with a static fishing method that was so effective that Trefor memorably described it as ‘cheating’. We reckoned that it was 3x more effective than old style roving.

Obviously on a 2024, low stock river those statistics are irrelevant, but for what it is worth my current fishing mate and I tend to rove when we are ‘learning’ stretches and then only fish short sessions in the best spots in the best conditions, Many of my trips are less than 2 hours duration and usually only involve 1 or at most 2 swims. But it has to be said that many are blanks.

I’ve no idea whether staying there for 6 hours would have generated a bite; I somewhat doubt it…….

A scenario repeated on many rivers. The Dorset Stour for one. When you live an hour away, it's hardly worth bothering with short sessions but definitely that is the way to go if you live close enough.

 

[Tim Marks]

A scenario repeated on many rivers. The Dorset Stour for one. When you live an hour away, it's hardly worth bothering with short sessions but definitely that is the way to go if you live close enough.

I would take a different view.

I did often (not so much now) drive for an hour or so, fish for 2 hours and then drive back. I’ve only stopped because the fish aren’t there now.

 

[Andrew Jackson]

Exactly. Its hard to find the motivation!

 

[Alex Gowney]

Hi Alex, I’m relatively new to barbel fishing started 14 years ago, so my question is? Was there really upto 3 or 4 times more barbel in the Yorkshire rivers? Or do you mean generally? Only seen a slow decline in my time fishing for them in Yorkshire.

I wouldn't know about the Yorkshire rivers Jim, I'm talking mostly about the Thames and it's tributaries and the Warks Avon. The Thames tributaries, the Cherwell, Windrush, Kennet etc. suffered quite rapid declines, the Warks Avon more of a steady decline. A lot of the rivers I used to fish went downhill after the terrific floods of 2007, and this wasn't just barbel, chub also declined considerably. Not too sure why, but a few rivers were never quite the same again.