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Your first barbel photo

Clive Kenyon said:
It was easier for the young 'uns Bill. They didn't have to carry a 5" x 4" glass plate field camera, wooden tripod and an ounce of magnesium powder for the flash gun.
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A good point! This is a 11:06 1976 Hampshire Avon stunner (my PB that reigned for 20 years).

11lb 6oz.jpg


Just three exposures left on the roll of film in my camera. That camera in the hands of a fellow angler who questioned "do I press this?" using up one of those frames. Two clicks later, he had captured a fine image. But I had to wait several days to see those images while Boots The Chemist developed the film! :eek::cool::eek::cool:
 
I innocently sent my first barbel picture to the angling times in 1993 when I worked for the electricity board,
Never again! They added their caption and it started to appear on the walls of all the works offices with moustaches, glasses and speech bubbles with “somethings fishy ear” coming out my mouth!
The Forman thought it was funny that I could be shocked into doing anything!
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Chris Guy said:
Goodness, I lost count of the fish I had along there. Up in the spinney was a swim with a reedbed, where you could wade out and trot through the funnel. Great sport with roach, dace, chub and barbel. Generally fishing hemp and tares.
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Think I know that swim - also used to use hemp and tares and occasionally get crashed by the inevitable barbel. Used to fish the Chew at Keynsham using trotted cheese for roach. Great fishing in the area and regularly fished the K&A and lower Bristol Avon.

Cheers
Bob
 
Bob Gill said:
Think I know that swim - also used to use hemp and tares and occasionally get crashed by the inevitable barbel. Used to fish the Chew at Keynsham using trotted cheese for roach. Great fishing in the area and regularly fished the K&A and lower Bristol Avon.

Cheers
Bob
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I never fished the Chew, or even downstream of Bath, bar Saltford once or twice. The swim against the fence at Haydens was a bagging swim, over to the far bank.
What are the chub and roach stocks like now?
 
Not my first barbel
as I had been catching them for a couple of years aged 14 to 16 BUT this is my only picture of those years I it was just before my 17th birthday the year is 1962 original and cleaned up pic by a lovely member !
 

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Neil Maidment said:
A good point! This is a 11:06 1976 Hampshire Avon stunner (my PB that reigned for 20 years).

View attachment 18131

Just three exposures left on the roll of film in my camera. That camera in the hands of a fellow angler who questioned "do I press this?" using up one of those frames. Two clicks later, he had captured a fine image. But I had to wait several days to see those images while Boots The Chemist developed the film! :eek::cool::eek::cool:
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Four of us went to Ireland. We fished a lough and never had a bite. Next day the others wanted to go pike fishing, but I had a feeling in my water about the lough. I dropped them off and went back. I had 15 bream, none under 5lb. Before I left to go and collect the others I took loads of snaps of the bream on my OM10. None of them came out. The film had jammed and wasn't moving when I was winding on.
 
The barbel above was actually my 3rd barbel.

I was fishing at Iford for bits when an angler turned up, set up and cast out in front of some reeds on the opposite bank. He had two or three barbel and left. I never saw that angler there again (although it was my local haunt) and I think the angler may have been Martin Hooper.

I fished it myself the following day using sweetcorn and had a 6 and 4lb barbel I was absolutely thrilled. A few days later I had the catch of a lifetime as an aspiring specimen hunter when I had the barbel at 6.13, a 5.08 bream and 1.07 roach. Three pbs in a day!
 
Richard Bruton said:
The barbel above was actually my 3rd barbel.

I was fishing at Iford for bits when an angler turned up, set up and cast out in front of some reeds on the opposite bank. He had two or three barbel and left. I never saw that angler there again (although it was my local haunt) and I think the angler may have been Martin Hooper.

I fished it myself the following day using sweetcorn and had a 6 and 4lb barbel I was absolutely thrilled. A few days later I had the catch of a lifetime as an aspiring specimen hunter when I had the barbel at 6.13, a 5.08 bream and 1.07 roach. Three pbs in a day!
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The tidal from Iford Bridges to the harbour was my schooling ground from the late 1950s. My uncles lived a short distance from Iford Lane and the family home had been there since the 1920s, they also grew up on the lower river.

Barbel showed up, often hooked and lost, occasionally in senior and junior matches in the 1960s particularly in the old Pony Fields area. I left school in 1970, got a job straight away but then the start date was delayed for six months (I was paid 50% of my agreed salary for doing nothing!). I pretty much fished solidly for 6 months or so including chasing barbel down there in the late autumn. A handful of other more senior anglers were also targeting them. I had a few, mostly in the Pony Fields down to MEXE Fence but also the odd 1 or 2 further down in The Dumps. A little later I even had one from under Tuckton Bridge trotting for dace.

Good time and great memories.
 
Neil Maidment said:
The tidal from Iford Bridges to the harbour was my schooling ground from the late 1950s. My uncles lived a short distance from Iford Lane and the family home had been there since the 1920s, they also grew up on the lower river.

Barbel showed up, often hooked and lost, occasionally in senior and junior matches in the 1960s particularly in the old Pony Fields area. I left school in 1970, got a job straight away but then the start date was delayed for six months (I was paid 50% of my agreed salary for doing nothing!). I pretty much fished solidly for 6 months or so including chasing barbel down there in the late autumn. A handful of other more senior anglers were also targeting them. I had a few, mostly in the Pony Fields down to MEXE Fence but also the odd 1 or 2 further down in The Dumps. A little later I even had one from under Tuckton Bridge trotting for dace.

Good time and great memories.
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Dream come true that Neil - getting paid to go fishing!

I wonder if the barbel still frequent that area particularly the deeper water from the caravan park down through to MEXE? I'm not aware of anybody putting any time in down there although I did hear of a barbel from opposite the caravan park in a match a year or two a go.

The area that I had my first fish from has changed considerably. The swims have gone, the rivers slow and silty and it looks more likely a bream haunt rather than barbel swim.
 
Not actually my first barbel but the first to appear in a photograph. It's July 1975 (I am aged 17yrs 11months) at The Royalty Fishery with the Parlour Pool in the background. I made the rod and the reel is a Strike Right Ultraflo (could not afford better) both of which I still have. I caught six barbel that day ranging in size from 3lbs to 6lbs 8oz and then gave the swim to my mate who had another two. All caught on meat trundled between the weedbeds.
Royalty barbel 16-7-1975 3lbs 12oz (1).jpg
 
Richard Bruton said:
I wonder if the barbel still frequent that area particularly the deeper water from the caravan park down through to MEXE? I'm not aware of anybody putting any time in down there although I did hear of a barbel from opposite the caravan park in a match a year or two a go.
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My wife and I retired back to Dorset in 2015. In August of that year I revisited an old favourite barbel spot on the tidal, just a couple of hours for old times sake. I was still settling in when the 'pin screamed! The last time I had fished that spot and landed a barbel was 38 years previously! I've heard of a couple landed in more recent times and although I'm not sure too many are trying down that far, there's probably more than a few hanging around or, more likely, moving in and out of the area.

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Neil Maidment said:
My wife and I retired back to Dorset in 2015. In August of that year I revisited an old favourite barbel spot on the tidal, just a couple of hours for old times sake. I was still settling in when the 'pin screamed! The last time I had fished that spot and landed a barbel was 38 years previously! I've heard of a couple landed in more recent times and although I'm not sure too many are trying down that far, there's probably more than a few hanging around or, more likely, moving in and out of the area.

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Yeah, I have a feeling that with the increased pressure above the bridge in the last few years a few of those tidal barbs have dropped down a bit lower.

I keep meaning to try and find the time to find out but keep getting distracted by other piscatorial intereststs. - ever the case.
 
Since returning to angling I’ve always fished alone, which means my photos are always of the fish and not me holding them. I really don’t need to see that, and I can assure you that you’re not missing anything either!

My first barbel was in 2015 on the River Dearne. 6lb, and was soon followed by a 9lb and 10lb 4oz. All in the space of three hours on a sunny but windy, July afternoon.
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