Stalking Success
by
Mick Wood
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(Many thanks to the Barbel Catchers Club for submitting the article)
I have made the following observations
whilst stalking barbel in clear, shallow water on Yorkshire’s River Wharfe
but I suspect that the same will apply on many different rivers.
The subject on the vibration that line causes, especially when rivers
are carrying extra water has been discussed in the Barbel Catchers magazine
‘Barbus’ and I would certainly not
discount the impact that it can have. I still think though that a greater hindrance
to catching barbel is where the line enters the water to the end rig as it
can be seen quite clearly by the fish. Following
a second summer spending countless hours observing feeding barbel, I have
again noticed that when they are feeding hard in broad daylight, then line
bites are extremely rare. Certainly
so infrequent as to be out of all proportion to the number of fish present
which on a couple of occasions was between 75 and 100 barbel! Then, when the light fades the line bites start
and increase as time passes. Secondly
I noticed that quite early on in the season that barbel would not approach
a hookbait on a 15” hook length but as soon as I switched to a four foot hook
length the problem ceased. The hookbait
was still directly downstream of the end rig and therefore the barbel would
still be able to pick up any line vibration and yet the long hook length definitely
made a significant difference.
Early in the season
when fish refused to approach the hookbait, I had also resorted to using a
hook length of Shimano Aero which is finer than my Maxima main line and whilst
this proved to be an excellent line it did not significantly affect the number
of bites in the way the long hook length did.
After a month, I simply fished 81b Maxima straight through in full
confidence.
There is absolutely
no doubt in my mind after watching perhaps 100 barbel pick my hookbait up
this past summer that the long hook length used to get the hookbait away from
the mainline made a massive difference and as almost every single barbel picked
up the bait and turned, I did not deep hook a single fish.
The next observation
of use came about by accident. How
many 'stalkers' have spent hours in vain trying to separate the biggest fish
in a group before making the first cast? After
all, we mustn’t spook the big one by catching a smaller fish must we? On one occasion I had around 20 moderate barbel
and two better ones on my feed. As
I was fishing between school runs, my time was limited and with no time for
messing about, I decided to fish and hope but an interesting thing happened.
Over the first three hours, I caught five barbel between 4 and 61bs.
Then the group of moderate fish dispersed leaving only the two bigger
fish between which I then caught in two casts ‑ 7.1 and 7.15. If we accept that barbel do not shoal in the
true sense of the word, as say roach and bream do but merely congregate in
favourable areas, then I believe that I had two separate groups of fish in
one swim. Catching a few moderate fish
caused the 'moderate group' to disperse leaving the seemingly undisturbed
'bigger group' behind. This observation
was very soon to be a key one, even if my theory was wrong.
A couple of weeks later, a bloke
I had bumped into told me of a group of fish in an area I had never fished
that were 'uncatchable'. During a short
daytime session, I decided to put some hemp in the swim and leave it while
I fished elsewhere. The swim did not
allow me to do this because within seconds of putting a pint of hemp in a
foot of water ten feet from the bank, I saw barbel emerging from the downstream
willow. There were six fish and two
at least looked as if they might be doubles.
I watched in disbelief that two such fish were feeding avidly in front
of me on a stretch where the club record had just gone to 9.11. They fed for about five minutes so I topped
up the feed and they re-emerged but unfortunately so did a couple of dozen
smaller fish. Bugger! Then I recalled that earlier session and decided
to go for it. Loose feeding hemp and
corn, fishing corn on a size 10 Super Specialist to 81b Maxima and a four
foot tail, I soon caught a couple of barbel of around 5‑61bs. Still the six big ones fed but my next three
fish were all around the six pound mark.
After about three hours and these five captures the moderate fish dispersed
completely but only four of the six big ones remained, hanging a little further
downstream than before. One of the
two biggest was feeding in a very specific area between the edge of the willow
and a large rock. This channel was
barely 18" wide and being a little further out than the first area I
had fed. I immediately started to have
problems with dead blanket weed fouling my line.
This problem was solved by means of a back lead eight feet up the line
and since my mainline would be pinned to the riverbed, I reduced the hook
length to 12", the long tail no longer being required.
I cast out two grains of corn into the channel once the fish had gone
and fired out some more hemp. The big one soon returned and started to feed
hard. After what seemed like an eternity
the barbel had still not taken my hookbait and I felt sure she was avoiding
it. Then, with 15 minutes to packing up time the
rod flew round and I was in the rarest of Yorkshire barbel angling predicaments,
knowing for certain that I was attached to a double. The fish weighed 101bs 7oz, the result of thirteen
years of effort and more than 1100 Wharfe barbel.
© Barbel Fishing World 2004