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Vintage magazine article

Paul Bullinger

Paul Bullinger

Senior Member & Supporter
I recently acquired (through an on line auction) some vintage fishing magazines. Among the various publications was a copy of "Angling" (a Country Life publication) dated April 1951. I reproduce below part of an article by F. W. Oates titled "Barbel Fishing" which I thought may interest some of you:

"J. W. Martin, the famous "Trent Otter" used some prodigious tackles to catch barbel. His home-made slider floats which he used in deep water were cork covered turkey quills, carrying 12 "B.B" shots, and two or three barrel leads. Such tackles he fished to "drag" and "lay" right on the bottom. It was with gear of this kind, mounted with three lobworms on a No 8 hook to 1 x gut that he took 33 barbel weighing 100lb at a sitting. He evidently put more reliance on heavy ground baiting than fine tackle. His swim was baited up the day before with six bucketfuls of scalded bran and boiled greaves; and two buckets of lobworms for good measure."

The article also mentions staining nylon line with the addition of "glauber salts to make the dye more effective" Dark sorrel is the suggested shade.

How things have changed in 70 years but what a fascinating insight into barbel fishing techniques used in the early 50's
 
I am sure it must have been he I saw on the Trent the last time I was there, in September ,the chap I saw was using slightly more groundbait handballed in, but had ditched the float and had a swimfeeder that was the size of a bucket , nay, dustbin would be a better comparison.

Some things never change. 🙁


Dave
 
Greaves were mentioned as a fishing bait in The Boke of St Albens dating from before 1486. Walton's baits included tender young mice and William Lawson advocated using puppies as pike bait, although he ommitted to say whether they were live or dead.
 
There was a firm in Yorkshire selling dendrodaenas by the kilo online. Even at their cheap pricss 3 kilo is way over most people's budget.
 
In Victorian times barbel fishing, certainly on the Thames, involved employing a boatman who would bait up for quite a time, possibly a week or more, with thousands of lobworms. Recall 5 thousand for a week mentioned. Then commence the slaughter, which it was. No catch and release back then!
What are greaves?
 
I think greaves is a form of tallow made of animal fat and other rendered animal body parts ,also known as chandlers greaves , nice .....
 
Last edited:
Paul Collins said:
In Victorian times barbel fishing, certainly on the Thames, involved employing a boatman who would bait up for quite a time, possibly a week or more, with thousands of lobworms. Recall 5 thousand for a week mentioned. Then commence the slaughter, which it was. No catch and release back then!
What are greaves?
Click to expand...
Somewhere in my family, who hail from Abingdon, is a picture of a catch of barbel caught from a punt. The picture is taken at Abingdon Bridge and there must be 25 barbel, looking to be up to about 8 pounds, all dead. I think they used to give them to the local hunt to feed the hounds.
 
There's a tale of a similar catch in an old book I've got, possibly by 'Red Spinner', and the last line is something like 'and not another was caught from that spot for the rest of the year, to my knowledge.'
 
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