Barbel and chub.

[richard859]

My question is a simple one, but the answer is a complicated one I expect?

I'm fishing a river for big chub, and have no problem with the ''how to'' as it's a species I've fished for many years. But the water also holds a decent head of barbel, and that's a species I've caught very few of. (Due to not being present)

If I continue to fish for the chub, will I also pick up the odd barbel from time to time, or will I have to change my tactics?

I use bread, cheese, worms and now would like to try some bollies? I've read the articles and threads on fishing bollies, but really don't want to fish bolt rigs. I prefer to link ledger and free line as the water is clear, shallow and the fish spookey? Cast a heavy lead and their gone!!

If I use bollies on a light ledger with a long tail, will the chub and barbel slip up. I've not tried bollies for either species? (with a short hair)

Could try maggots but again without a feeder, maybe?

Question is really can you fish for both at the same time, if so how?

Thanks all.

 

[Titus]

It is posible to target the barbel but it's not easy, I have found that by feeding corn you can often get the chub preocupied and even move them out of your swim, leaving you free to fish with a boilie for the barbel.
Chub will also chase floating bread a long way downstream, start by feeding the top of your swim and gradualy feed lower down untill they move out of the swim following the bread downstream, this worked well for me several times on the Teme a few years ago.
Because of the different architecture of their mouths chub and barbel feed differently, a chub tends to feed by picking up individual items in it's lips and apears to test them. As such they will often drop a hair rigged bait after giving the classic unmisable bite because the hook was nowhere near the mouth. A barbel on the other hand has been described as having an anti eject mouth and feeds more like a carp with a suck/blow motion. Often a hair rigged bait will prick the fish even if the bait is blown out or rejected, with this in mind it is worth fishing a longer hair for barbel giving the chub time to reject the bait.
Of course if it's a clear river you could simply pull the bait away from the chub.

 

[Keith M]

I agree with Titus, and would use a longer hair for Barbel for the same reasons as titan described.

I remember one particular day last season when I was fishing a crystal clear stream that was full of Chub and had a fair number of Barbel amongst the far bank reeds and out of sight under the streamer weed.

The guy in the next swim upstream was trotting small cubes of luncheonmeat and after he stopped his float at the end of his trot and started to wind his float back upstream, his luncheonmeat would often rise up and then come off the hook and sink onto the gravel right in front of me.

Immediately after this a chub would follow the meat down to the gravel, pick the meat up in it’s lips (followed by a couple of other chub from the shoal) and dart off to the other side of the stream away from the main shoal with the luncheonmeat still visible in its lips, and only once it was away from the shoal would it then swallow the meat.

The meat wasn’t attached to a hook but I would imagine that If the meat had been attached to a normal hair it would have resulted in the classic pull round with no hook-up because the hook would have still been outside the Chubs mouth.

Since then I have rarely fished with a hair for Chub and if I did it would be a very short hair with the bait resting against the side of the hook.

Also I have noticed that if there are a few Barbel in my swim then there are usually very few Chub in it, and I normally only get around one Chub to every five or six Barbel (None if I am using a normal hair), however in some swims I get only Chub, which might be because a shoal of Chub may steer clear from a swim with feeding barbel in it or it may be that when there are feeding Barbel in the swim the Barbel may just bully their way to the bait first before the Chub can get at it, I’m not sure which or whether it is both.

I have also had days when the Chub seem to hover over the bottom weed picking off Maggots and caster washing down in the current but ignored any bait that fell into the weed onto the bottom.

 

[Judas Priest]

****y

If you freeline for the chub at present, and I take it this is sight fishing, then why not continue freelining but with a boilie?
Either side hook the boilie or if you're having trouble with chub, as has already been said, increase the hairlength to maybe an inch between hook and bait. This is because a chub has the ability to spit a bait out or even just hold it in its lips before moving off if it feels resistance.

Also if you can see the fish then you should by careful feeding and thinking a bit seperate the chub away from the barbel. I'd introduce some freebies right at the head of the swim. The chub should be first out followed by the more cautious barbel. Leave them to settle on the freebies for a while then when they leave the swim apply a few more freebies. Keep watching carefuly and you should notice that the barbel leave the swim first and the chub just hang around.When you've done this a few times, introduce a few more freebies at the head BUT then when the chub arrive, and before the barbel do, put some half way down the swim.This should then stop the barbel and seperate the two groups.It is important though that you now keep the two areas fed by trickling freebies in otherwise the chub will drop down onto the barbelor vice versa the barbel will move up.

IF that fails try as mentioned by others using floating casters to get the chub to move down and away.

 

[Bob Hornegold]

You don't have to bolt rig to use Boilies.

In the early days of Boilies we we still usung Light Leads and side hooking the boilies on the shank of the hook ?

Mind; If you are prepared to go down the root of the Hair Rig the boilie will work better .

You will still catch Chub.

And Barbel .

Bob

 

[Simon K]

Mind; If you are prepared to go down the root of the Hair Rig the boilie will work better .

You will still catch Chub.

And Barbel .

Bob

Quite.

Personally I don't think there's any way to avoid one over the other in most conditions. They often frequent the same part of the swim, eating the same food, even alongside each other with silvers too.

Long hairs, short hairs work equally well (or not) for both species. All else is "urban myth" in my opinion.

Barbel can be just as "canny" about taking bait in weed rather than from the river-bed. I've watched them do it.

As long as you keep the bait going in you won't spook one type over the other for any longer period of time and can catch both. The main thing is, if you're not getting bites in clear conditions and you can see fish feeding, to subtly alter your presentation regularly to find one that fools the fish.

 

[cg74]

Personally I don't think there's any way to avoid one over the other in most conditions. They often frequent the same part of the swim, eating the same food, even alongside each other with silvers too.

Simon is very right, there is IMO no way of fishing for barbel at the total exclusion of chub.

That said I've found a few way of reducing the unwanted chub attentions; if hair-rigging a bait, a gap between the hook-bend and bait of 10-15mm certainly cuts the number of chub hook-ups.
Conversely if you do want to catch chub, a gap of 0-6mm is what I've found to be optimal, or go to the othe extreme; 30-40mm.

Also unless the chub are present in big numbers, a big bed of small particles like hemp has the effect of not holding them in your swim for prolonged periods, yes it attracts them and they feed on them but often (usually) they feed frantically, fill up and leave.

 

[barbelboi]

The only way I've found to pretty much segregate the barbel from the chub (or 'vici versi') is to target the relevant areas of a weir pool - it works for me.
Jerry

 

[904_cannon]

Picking out the chub; If the water is low and clear I would use either flake or crust free lined.
Lightly press a few smaller bits of flake onto the bait piece and you'll soon have the chub fighting for your bait as the smaller bits fall away.
That's assuming the river has some flow - I don't like fishing 'stillwater' rivers.

If you want to used boilies have a look at these 3b. They are magic and are used and recommended by some top chub anglers

To leger without making a disturbance, 'float' your end rig/bait into the spot with dissolving foam 'bungs' - I bought a pillow sized pack about 8 years ago and still have 100's of the things - they also make great ear bungs for when the wife has the TV on too loud

 

[john conway (CSG - ACA)]

I mainly fish for Chub summer and winter on the River Ribble and generally catch both barbell and chub in the same session.
• I catch more barbel than chub in the summer than in the winter.
• I very rarely catch chub on a rising river.
• On the Ribble I don’t catch Chub at night when there is a good moon, barbel don’t seem to be as sensitive to moonlight.
• I catch far less chub than barbel during the day in bright conditions and when the river is low.
• Re: long hair vs short hair for Chub fishing; short hair always produces far more Chub for me.
• Looking at my Ribble records out of 300 barbel only 4 have been caught when the water temp has been 6C or less as opposed to 204 chub out of 1000 for the same temperature range.
BTW all of the above where caught ledgering.

Therefore, if your river fishes similar to the Ribble? Then target barbel when the river is rising or in flood (within reason), when the water temp is above 6C, use a short leader and a long hair. You may still catch chub but the ratio should be much more favourable towards barbel.

 

[Bluenose]

I mainly fish for Chub summer and winter on the River Ribble and generally catch both barbell and chub in the same session.
• I catch more barbel than chub in the summer than in the winter.
• I very rarely catch chub on a rising river.
• On the Ribble I don’t catch Chub at night when there is a good moon, barbel don’t seem to be as sensitive to moonlight.
• I catch far less chub than barbel during the day in bright conditions and when the river is low.
• Re: long hair vs short hair for Chub fishing; short hair always produces far more Chub for me.
• Looking at my Ribble records out of 300 barbel only 4 have been caught when the water temp has been 6C or less as opposed to 204 chub out of 1000 for the same temperature range.
BTW all of the above where caught ledgering.

Therefore, if your river fishes similar to the Ribble? Then target barbel when the river is rising or in flood (within reason), when the water temp is above 6C, use a short leader and a long hair. You may still catch chub but the ratio should be much more favourable towards barbel.

Superb.

Nice to see you post again John!

 

[john conway (CSG - ACA)]

Superb.

Nice to see you post again John!

Hi Bluenose
My last few years at work were manic; I retired about six weeks ago. I was offered an attractive contract to stay on but one thing they can’t pay me in is TIME. This was brought home to me doing the Christmas Cards this year, so many names to cross off that were younger than me.

Now I've got the time I'm chasing the tail end of flood pulses issued on line by the EA River Level Service, pity they don't show graphs of water temperature.

Good luck to anyone fishing the Ribble tonight, 1.34M flood pulse just gone through @ 15:00hrs but it looks like it may rise again?

Happy New Year

 

[Sean Meeghan]

Good to see you on here again John. Happy New Year to you. Like you I'm watching the level graphs very carefully in the hopw of some decent chub conditions.