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Thoughts on Barbel wising up to rigs

Fish are contrary creatures. A swim I have been fishing for the last couple of months has a small area of slack water close to the bank. It is around 6 feet deep and the bank is about 5 feet above the water so while I am fishing mid river for barbel I can look straight down into this area. I noticed that two chub regularly cruised through in the upper level. Below them a carp would meander along the bottom occassionally tipping up and sucking something off the bottom. A barbel sometimes makes an appearance as do two bream. I spend hours watching the fishy goings on and drop groundbait and hook baits down to see their reactions. The barbel doesn't pick up the bait and charge downstream as the script says it should. It browses much like the carp does. Bream suck and blow around the bait more. Perhaps the absence of barbels means that they can't taste what is in front of their mouths so they have to hunt for it? Like apple bobbing. Chub prefer to take a descending bait on the move if I don't spook them when throwing the bait in. If I do, they are gone for good. The other species might spook, but they soon come back.

I have seen barbel sucking caddis of stones when I have been wading in the Wharfe fly-fishing. Also I have seen them hoovering brickwork on bridges like catfish do in an aquarium. In a small river I fish shoals of barbel move gradually upstream many yards feeding on the sandy bed. Then they turn, drift back downstream before repeating the upstream feeding behaviour. They do this over and over again.

I think in many cases, where barbel are comfortable in their surroundings they do not smash and grab the bait giving the classic wrap round. That comes after the fish has snagged itself on the hook as it slowly browse the bottom and comes to the end of the hooklink.

TLDR: A shorter hooklink to a heavy ledger and a double particle bait like whole maize or 6mm pellets on a short hair might be the answer to the original question.
 
Just because a barbel isn’t a carp; does that mean that it is really stupid and can’t learn…..

Im lucky in that I’ve done my time carp fishing with good anglers on hard waters….rigs make a difference with carp - so why not with barbel ?

I use the best rigs I can and I’m sure I still get aborted takes.

As far as the OP goes, smaller baits, smaller sharper hooks and shorter hooklinks would probably all help. As a last resort, a small bait and a big hook…….
 
Terry Harman said:
if they don’t wise up to rigs why are we all using hair rigs why don’t we just side hook a boilie
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Hair rigs have been used for ages and still probably catch more fish than any other method. I think it’s less the rigs that they would wise up to and more the danger of being caught in a certain area by feeding on certain baits all the time. If you kept getting ill from eating pizza from a certain restaurant you’d stop eating there but it wouldn’t stop you eating pizza from somewhere else. It’s probably similar principle for the fish
 
Adam Penning describes this behaviour in one of his carp rig videos, where he talks about the benefit of sharpening hooks.
I know he's talking about carp, but he refers them as either 'Bolters' (the ones that give the equivalent of the 3 ft twitch) or 'Sitters' (the ones that sense something is wrong and stay put whilst they try to shed the hook) He also says that they can change from one to another dependent on various situations, angling pressure, weather, time of year etc.
Personally I feel there's something in it, and that barbel aren't mugs having experienced it myself on the Trent with fish to 13+
 
Hair rigs can be used to mount baits that can't be fished on a hook and also to try and avoid non target species, so possibly not a great example to use. But I get the point.
 
Terry Harman said:
if they don’t wise up to rigs why are we all using hair rigs why don’t we just side hook a boilie
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Have you tried side hooking boilies for barbel @Terry Harman ? Maybe it would be more effective than hair rigging.

Many good anglers swear by hair rigged pellets, other good anglers swear by banding their pellets adjacent to the hook (which is virtually equivalent to side-hooking). Is one right and the other wrong? I don't think so. I'll use short (and long) Stonfos, which might be seen as the best of both worlds, or the worst, or a compromise.
I don't believe that you can compare barbel directly with carp, unless you're talking about river carp ... or barbel in static/very slow moving water.
Saying barbel and carp are comparable as they're "both fish" is lazy thinking IMO. Barbel and chub live shoulder to shoulder in our rivers, but they don't always (often) pick up a bait in the same way. Try comparing barbel bites with those from perch or eels. They are all fish, but they definitely don't take baits in the same way.
 
Terry Harman said:
if they don’t wise up to rigs why are we all using hair rigs why don’t we just side hook a boilie
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One of the advantages of hair rigging baits for Barbel is related to the way they take in food. Unlike Chub which take the bait with their mouth, a Barbel has Pharyngeal teeth (as do Carp) which are situated deep in the back of the throat so they suck in the bait to the back of the throat which means with hair rigged baits the hook is just inside their mouth and 9 times out of ten when they bolt upon feeling the hook they are hooked neatly in their thick rubber lips. With baits for Barbel that are mounted inside the bait it is necessary to strike upon first indications to prevent either deep hooking or especially with larger meat baits the hook not making contact and pulling out of the mouth.
 
Chub also have pharyngeal teeth as do roach and other cyprinids. The main differences are that chub, roach and bream lack barbules that are used to feel and taste / smell food and the relationship between the position of eyes and mouth. Chub and roach are predominantly sight feeders, hunters, and have eyes that enable them to see what is in front of their mouths. Barbel and carp cannot see what they are eating. Watch koi taking floating pellets and you'll see them constantly missing their targets.

Barbel are set up to locate small items of food on or just under the bed of the river and rely on smell and touch to find them.
 
This is a big bait problem, imo.

Barbel have anti-eject mouths but bigger baits take alot more effort to go into their gobs and big baits are more subject to not acting natural and therefore maybe having more chance of being rejected.

Sharp hook is a must. Lots of times when Ive been getting knocks and having the feeling that I might be being done I have swapped over to a new hook and wallop hooked one.

6mm sized bit of bait/paste on v.short hair, size 8 hook, 12-14inch hooklink.

Failing that I'd try an 8inch hooklink, (and/or would be trying to upstream ledger but that is what I always would do).
 
Terry Harman said:
i’ve been banging on about this for ages we are definitely getting done all the time … everyone talks about chub knocks on the rod tips … are they chub ? … how do we know they are chub ?
at the start of the season i started using different rigs looking at what the carp boys do ( they wised up to this 25 years ago ) and i did have some success using anti eject rigs .. rod top quivering where they had hooked there selves but not bolting just sitting on the spot trying to get rid of the hook …. don’t know what it is with barbel anglers we seem to think we have cracked it but we haven’t…. there will be those that come along and say i catch plenty on my rigs….. the question is how many more would they catch if they tried something different
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I think a lot of it stems from well known anglers dismissing the fact that barbel bites do come in several formats. If you're doing it right( aka their way), a 3ft twitch is the only outcome. Early season with plenty of hungry fish who haven't see an angler for 3 months, agree most of the bites are screamers but it doesn't take too long on my river for the wiser , bigger fish to work it out and a much more subtle approach is required if you want to consistently catch. And now it's a bit colder and it's trickier still.
My friend had some big arguments at Barbel Society meetings back in the day and was pretty much declared a looney for suggesting that barbel can and will reject baits, despite the fact he'd seen it first hand on many occasions
To be fair he doesn't use any fancy rigs - absolute bog standard stuff - small boilies, minimal bait, great watercraft and lots and lots of patience but he can catch in a puddle.
 
perhaps i didn’t explain myself properly i’m well aware the hair rig has been around for ages lenny middleton and kevin maddocks were first using it in 1979 and kevin let the cat out of the bag when carp fever was published around 1980
but the point is why did they feel the need to invent the hair rig …. to get more confident takes and also the hair rig has some anti eject qualities.. but once it had been around for a while carp started to wise up to it and learnt to eject it ….. which brings me to the point i was trying to make in the first place .. carp anglers have the common sense to evolve and try and stay ahead of the game ..that’s why rig mechanics have evolved in carp fishing… why have they stood still in barbel fishing we should be trying different things and be a bit more forward thinking….. it’s not all about tilley hats and luncheon meat
 
I think that is a bit simplistic Terry. From memory, during the last few weeks I have read about using maggots in winter, boilies v pellets, hook length opinions, location of barbel in cold water and baiting tactics as the weather cools. There seems to be quite a variety of methods and tactics being used.
 
Terry Simner said:
Have you tried side hooking boilies for barbel @Terry Harman ? Maybe it would be more effective than hair rigging.

Many good anglers swear by hair rigged pellets, other good anglers swear by banding their pellets adjacent to the hook (which is virtually equivalent to side-hooking). Is one right and the other wrong? I don't think so. I'll use short (and long) Stonfos, which might be seen as the best of both worlds, or the worst, or a compromise.
I don't believe that you can compare barbel directly with carp, unless you're talking about river carp ... or barbel in static/very slow moving water.
Saying barbel and carp are comparable as they're "both fish" is lazy thinking IMO. Barbel and chub live shoulder to shoulder in our rivers, but they don't always (often) pick up a bait in the same way. Try comparing barbel bites with those from perch or eels. They are all fish, but they definitely don't take baits in the same way.
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I reckon of all the cyprinids, carp are the most comparable with barbel. And every time I've watched underwater footage carp or barbel feeding I'm struck by the similarities. That's not making a direct comparison btw, just acknowledging some aspects of behaviour are a little similar. And it seems pretty clear that some carp have learnt to try and shed the hook after getting pricked by remaining static and head shaking, I say learnt because I'm pretty sure this must be a learnt behaviour. Is it not a reasonable supposition that some barbel may do the same? I've never subscribed to the view that barbel are muggy.
 
Clive Kenyon said:
I think that is a bit simplistic Terry. From memory, during the last few weeks I have read about using maggots in winter, boilies v pellets, hook length opinions, location of barbel in cold water and baiting tactics as the weather cools. There seems to be quite a variety of methods and tactics being used.
Click to expand...
all those factors are important clive and everything needs to come together like a jigsaw puzzle but i’m specifically talking about rigs and rig mechanics …. i have also read those threads but i have seen nothing about critically balanced baits or weighted hooks .. anti eject rigs… 360 rigs .. or even buoyant baits.. a member of a club i’m in fished popped up maggots on the middle trent the season before covid … he caught 100,s of barbel including over 80 doubles .., people should give different rigs a try you never know some of those “chub bangs” on the rod tip might turn into hooked barbel
 
Terry Harman said:
all those factors are important clive and everything needs to come together like a jigsaw puzzle but i’m specifically talking about rigs and rig mechanics …. i have also read those threads but i have seen nothing about critically balanced baits or weighted hooks .. anti eject rigs… 360 rigs .. or even buoyant baits.. a member of a club i’m in fished popped up maggots on the middle trent the season before covid … he caught 100,s of barbel including over 80 doubles .., people should give different rigs a try you never know some of those “chub bangs” on the rod tip might turn into hooked barbel
Click to expand...
I'm fairly sure I read an article by Laurence Breakspear on using popped-up baits for barbel, good few years ago now I reckon.
 
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