Quick tips

All the hints and tips on this page have been kindly supplied by visitors to Barbel Fishing World

Remove meat from two tins, slice length way's and push slices through a maggot riddle into a bucket, this will give you lots of tiny cubes, add a pint of hemp, this can now be packed into a ground bait feeder for a better concentraton of bait, fish a large piece of meat on a hair rig and hang on.

To save fiddling with a knife to cut Meat / Cheese / Sausage etc use the line between reel and first Eye as a cheese cutter and slice bait that way...You can also take the edges off the bait to rough it up a little.

Replace the handle on your hemp bucket with string of same lentgh by knotting the ends and pushing knots into the slots where the ends of the wire handle were. Its much easier and comfortable to carry.

Chop up meat, put in a strong freezable plastic container,and pour on top a jar of curry sauce (I find the Rogan Josh variety about right) If this is then frozen and thawed a couple of times and then frozen again you have a tub of bait ready for the next trip, which can be put straight back into the freezer, or topped up afterwards.

Do the same as above only substitute Campbells meat balls, liquified in a blender for the meat, and enough of the smallest sinking pellets to make a stiff mix. This can then be spooned into a large feeder with the holes enlarged to create a scent trail and loose feed around your bait, cheaper and more convenient than casters, maggots etc.

The barbel in our local stretch seemed to shy away from large paste baits, during the day in the summer. The tip is to make small cubic boilies from your chosen paste mix. All you do is make your paste up as usual, roll it to about 10mm thick (or what ever size baits you require). Then boil the 'slices' for about a minute. After these have dried and cooled they can be diced up. I found these were deadly mounted on a hair next to a size 8 or 10.

Get 6" of 3lb line, bring the ends together and tie an over hand knot at the end making a loop. Now thread the loop through one of the eyes on your swivel (the one at the top of your hook length where your weight is) and pass the loop back through its self making sure the knotted end is at the swivel. Thread on your freebies leaving enough room to place a sugar cube in the bottom of the loop. Once this is done, bring down the freebies and wedge the cube inside the loop.

The sugar cube dissolves and the freebies get washed off the loop and go down stream hopefully attracting the Barbel to your hook bait.

Avoid useing leads when ever possible. Use snagsafe a green putty type material available from most tackle shops. This can be moulded around a split shot or swivel placed on your line or hook link. It will pull free if it gets snagged releasing your end tackle.small stones or weed can be pressed into it to make the your end rig look more natural. It is also very easy to remove or add a portion to aid casting or vary bait presentation. Use a longer hook link ie 2-3 feet to keep the line or hook link on the bottom,I use this length all the time on the Thames and I feel it has improved my catches. Most people do not use a long link from hook to bottom weight because it is slightly more difficult to cast but the more line you have on the bottom the better. It avoids barbel touching the line and getting spoked.

Hello Andy, my tip would be, to always carry some Pink and Yellow rig foam as a balanced bait will often fool shy barbel, especialy those that fan a bait.

I carry bits of spaghetti to use as hair stops when using hair-rigged meat - saves buying the manufactured ones, or rooting around for bits of twig on the floor.

Always bait up 4 or 5 swims if possible, only spending 15 minutes in each one rotating around the swims.

My tip i when you go barbel fishing look at the river and if it is relatively small then you should look for tree roots and snags because that where the barbel like to feed. But if the river is quite big you should look for wholes in the river bed because that's where food would normally be deposited and so you would more likely to catch barbel there than any where else.

If your using meat on the hair rig, try sliding a length of small diameter rig tube onto the hair , it really does help the meat stay on the hair an awful lot longer in fast water.

For hair stops when using meat, try a bit of the stalk off of some of that waterweed with that funny name like rananunculus or something like that, tough as old boots, soft as waterweed, completely natural, free, and very acceptable to a barbel, and whats more very easy to get, if you cant find it drop me a line, i get nearly every time i retreive my end tackle.

I find to catch the bigger barbel, plant a small piece of red wool with your bait to add extra attraction, and hopefully you should catch a decent seize barbel.