Is it easy to catch barbel ?

[bennygesserit]

So on another forum someone is having the usual pop about how easy commercials ( some of them are , unless you are in a match of course when its all relative to the others in the match ) but how hard is batbel fishing ?

On day ticket waters it seems you hair rig a drilled pellet and simply wait - is that the case ?

Now I know for certain many on here fish with great skill but if commercials are "pretend" fishing then I would say some day ticket rivers aren't that far off - but I stand to be corrected of course.

 

[law]

Unfortunately, many modern day ticket waters (lakes) are hugely overstocked with fish.
So yes, they are easy to catch from them. If you have hundreds of fish in front of you, you get them one way or another.

Rivers on the other hand, you might only have a handful of fish in your swim, making them harder to get.

 

[sam vimes]

I depends on the river concerned and the conditions. Sometimes, in some places, it can be very easy. Sometimes, in some places it can be for harder than you seem to think. Simply chucking a hair rigged pellet out and waiting certainly can work, but it can also fail miserably, even on the easier venues. It's not much different to any other kind of targeted single species fishing.

In the past, if I wanted to all but guarantee catching barbel, I'd head off to certain parts of the Trent and pick my times/methods according to the conditions.

More of a challenge, smaller fish and less of them, I'd have headed to the lower Swale.

If I wanted to bang my head off the proverbial brick wall, I'd stay local on the upper Swale, where almost no one in their right mind comes to specifically target the barbel. Those that catch them are usually fishing for anything, and get lucky, or they are rather dedicated and spend a fair amount of time and effort in the pursuit.

 

[binka]

I find a great variation in how easy barbel fishing can be and sometimes just how difficult it is.

On occasions they can be a damn nuisance such as when trying to tempt chub on crust and I've even had barbel on a four inch lamprey section complete with wire trace which was intended for pike.

I think it gets a bit harder when you start looking at catching high numbers or trying to be selective for the bigger fish.

As a generalisation I think the challenge starts when you hook a barbel and not in tempting it in the first place whereas fickle roach can take some tempting but don't cause you a particular problem afterwards.

All down to natures given defence systems perhaps, I guess no fish can have them all?

 

[thecrow]

At times Barbel are positively suicidal, at other times such as low water levels they can be exasperating, there is a swim on the Derbyshire Derwent with a large tree in it, fish can be seen milling about beneath it, gradual feeding will bring some out of their hidy hole but introduce a lead or line and they will not budge.

Most fish can under the right conditions be easy but the most finiky difficult fish i have fished for are big Bream.

Comercials( i dont fish any) are IMO only easy if the stocking levels mean that the fish are constantly hungary.

 

[nicepix]

So on another forum someone is having the usual pop about how easy commercials ( some of them are , unless you are in a match of course when its all relative to the others in the match ) but how hard is batbel fishing ?

On day ticket waters it seems you hair rig a drilled pellet and simply wait - is that the case ?

Now I know for certain many on here fish with great skill but if commercials are "pretend" fishing then I would say some day ticket rivers aren't that far off - but I stand to be corrected of course.

Are you talking about stillwater barbel? :wh

 

[bennygesserit]

To be honest , on reflection this is too negative a thread , who cares who fishes and how lets hope we all enjoy our fishing , I know I do.

 

[sam vimes]

To be honest , on reflection this is too negative a thread , who cares who fishes and how lets hope we all enjoy our fishing , I know I do.

I wouldn't worry about it. It's all a question of perspective. Some seem to think that you turn up at a commercial and catch a shed load, regardless of the peg, time of year or conditions. Others feel that carping is purely a matter of dumping a load of bait in and waiting behind three or four rods for days. You've got the impression that barbeling is simply a matter of chucking pellet in and waiting. There will be those out there that say similar of other species or specializations. At certain times there may be an element of truth in all of those accusations. At other times they'll be shown up as complete nonesense.

 

[john step]

Fish are fish. Whether its a commercial or a river I feel the single most important deciding fact of easiness is density of the stock. The greater the stock the easier to catch a fish. After that comes the other features such as water clarity, temperature' angler competence etc.

 

[peterjg]

Barbel are great fish and yes, they are easy to catch however big roach .........

 

[thecrow]

Barbel are great fish and yes, they are easy to catch however big roach .........

At times big Roach can be easy, its all down to how many fish are there, unfortunately where there used to be a lot of big Roach thet are no longer there.

 

[cg74]

So on another forum someone is having the usual pop about how easy commercials ( some of them are , unless you are in a match of course when its all relative to the others in the match ) but how hard is batbel fishing ?

On day ticket waters it seems you hair rig a drilled pellet and simply wait - is that the case ?

Now I know for certain many on here fish with great skill but if commercials are "pretend" fishing then I would say some day ticket rivers aren't that far off - but I stand to be corrected of course.

IMO, most if not all Cyprinidae species are equally hard, or easy to catch, it's all dependant on the environment they're in.

Yes it is perfectly possible to cast a single pellet randomly into a commercial lake and catch a carp, eventually.
But it's the same scenario on the more prolific barbel rivers like the Wye and Severn.
That said if you go down that single pellet route, you'll catch very little on both waters. To increase your catch rate you'll need to place your bait close too your quarry, for example; tight to an island or close to the nearside marginal rushes for carp and for barbel tight to a overhanging tree or in a gully.

If you want to see how easy barbel can be, PM me and I'll show you how to catch on the Wye or Severn!
Then you'll be able to condescend the 'carp are easy' knockers in the same way as they do.

 

[no-one in particular]

Gudgeon are hard, used to catch loads of them, only caught about two in the last 5 years.
Someone should start stocking em.

 

[bennygesserit]

IMO, most if not all Cyprinidae species are equally hard, or easy to catch, it's all dependant on the environment they're in.

Yes it is perfectly possible to cast a single pellet randomly into a commercial lake and catch a carp, eventually.
But it's the same scenario on the more prolific barbel rivers like the Wye and Severn.
That said if you go down that single pellet route, you'll catch very little on both waters. To increase your catch rate you'll need to place your bait close too your quarry, for example; tight to an island or close to the nearside marginal rushes for carp and for barbel tight to a overhanging tree or in a gully.

If you want to see how easy barbel can be, PM me and I'll show you how to catch on the Wye or Severn!
Then you'll be able to condescend the 'carp are easy' knockers in the same way as they do.

Thanks Colin , presumably they are easy for you to catch , in certain places , because of your experience ?

 

[Titus]

To quote Westy, "if they are in your swim and you don't spook them or overfeed them they are simple".

However, while that situation is easy to achieve on the Trent or other large waters it is rarely the case on small rivers which are heavily fished and have a low stock. Then you are not only fishing for the fish you are also fishing against every other bloke who has fished and baited that swim in the last few weeks. The fish are generally swimming in a bait soup with more pellet and boilies than they could hope to eat and are highly tuned to bankside disturbance and lines in the water, in those circumstances they can become very difficult and the angler who consistently catches will need a deep understanding of fish and fishing and all the cunning and guile which an experienced angler acquired over thousands of rod hours.
The 10,000-hour rule, invented by Malcolm Gladwell, states that to become good at anything requires 10,000 hours of practice. Fishing is no exception.

 

[nicepix]

Thanks Colin , presumably they are easy for you to catch , in certain places , because of your experience ?

I think that it is fair to say that if you know where to place your bait especially in harder waters then you will increase your catch rate. And knowing where to place the bait comes with experience.

 

[cg74]

Thanks Colin , presumably they are easy for you to catch , in certain places , because of your experience ?

Sort of. Essentially though; easy is easy and that goes for everyone regardless of skill level. The anglers level of skill will serve to increase their catch rate on both types of fishery.

I'd say from a personal perspective comparing the ease of catching barbel from a prolific stretch of the Wye or carp from a well stocked commercial (both unknown waters to me) I'd say the barbel are easier simply because rivers are easier to read.

 

[superted77]

Stillwater barbel are easy enough to catch, the average sized ones, no harder than stockie carp, especially some day ticket waters where they're stocked in large numbers like carp.

But catching them from running water is whole different ball game, in particular on the River wear which only has a small number compared to more southern rivers, I've been targeting them occasionally the last four years when conditions were favourable, fishing into darkness etc. tried every conceivable bait and I've yet to catch one yet! They're normally caught from the free stretch, which gets hammered, so they've wised up! It's all down to stocking levels / anglers competence.:wh

 

[Ray Daywalker Clarke]

Barbel are great fish and yes, they are easy to catch however big roach .........

Well as for barbel. I fish the river Lea at times, best day 35 barbel in 6 hours, with witnesses. Yet a few weeks later I blanked in the same swim, moved and still blanked. Now in that two weeks little had changed weather wise, or with the rivers depth colour etc.

As for big Roach,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, my lips are sealed :wh

I will also add, the Late Fred Crouch had 17 Barbel in 3 hours one morning, i hate to think how many he ended up with by the end of the day.

 

[peterjg]

Re previous post - the question being are barbel easy to catch? I suspect that the bit of the Lea that Ray mentions is a 'short walk' with only 18 pegs which is heavily stocked with barbel. Big catches of barbel are common there, I once caught 20 barbel one day there while roach fishing, the barbel were being a blooming nuisance. The thing with barbel is that usually they give huge unmissable bites. Yesterday evening I fluked a 10lb 9oz barbel from the Kennet whilst legering for roach (as usual no roach caught)!