Hooklength material for barbel fishing

[aebitim]

Going back to the straight through route, specifically on the Wye, my favoured rig is a feeder or lead on a link swivel free runing and stopped with a leger stop so it is easy to change hooklenth. When the line gets damaged it is dead easy to slide the stop up to the undamaged part of the line and retie the hook, which is often blunted and needs replacing. This can be a frequent operation, sometimes every couple of casts if fishing a moving bait. The fish dont seem to be tackle shy and a 12lb line gives a safety margin for the small nicks that inevitably occur. My favoured feeders come from Pauls angling, the square metal ones, which have a plastic link attached to the feeder held on by a thin strip of lead, when the feeder inevitably snags a good pull on the line will detach the link from the feeder. I use strips of roofing lead to add the necesary amount of weight to the feeder.

 

[Paul Morley]

Being back on the Ribble made me think again about a bunch of things, I only lost one lead (and that was two bolts from work on 8lb link). I suspect good practise can spread and if there are experienced thoughtful anglers out there they can set an example, however on the web you will see some weird approaches which can then be picked up ill advisedly. Vast amounts of not very good anglers going for barbel is bound to have a negative impact too. I think also it's about what's appropriate for the conditions in front of you, the Dane, Kennet, Ribble, Severn are all different. Just re-spooled my 15lb mainline...

 

[Graham Elliott 1]

I can't fault gt80 or gr60 in 12lb for mainline on rocky rivers. I'm on the wye now.


I also always use the enterprise snag free clips for feeders or leads. Allow you to pull off the weight if snagged up.

Check them out.

 

[cg74]

Now I can't quite follow this and I'm not the angler to give it creedence, the 4-5" section wasn't really about anti-eject, was it? Sean Meeghan who first put it in his excellent articles a few years ago here may be able to comment? I'm sure he won't have been the first to use it, but it gets a good explanation which is one I kind of agree with. I'm going for Barbel on Saturday for the first time in a year, I'll see how I perform and on what hooklength!!

Paul, I think (and I've used it) that the rig described is a perfect tangle rig (that's tangle not anti-tangle) , unless you pull a PVA stick through it or you're using a light weight hookbait such as maggots.
All that happens when it's out of the water, is with the slightest jolt it bounces the bait around or if you're overhead casting the bait spin around the hook; both causing tangles.

IMO Jim would be better off fishing as he was but with better balance. As his original set up literally was completely lacking in balance.

Starting at the business end; 10lb Drennan Double Strength snaps bang on 10lb and has very poor shock resistance properties. Subsequently it snaps very much lower than its stated bs.
Then 12lb Daiwa Sensor mainline, though it's not a low stretch line, to get any amount of stretch will require a fair amount of pressure. So the job of countering the surges from the fish are left to his rod, so he'll need a rod with an action like a fly rod or finally, a very lightly set clutch, which isn't the way to go.

So how best to improve things, the easiest way is to change the hooklength line (as asked), as I said in an earlier post: Ultima Power Steel, Ultima Power Carp or Daiwa Infinity, all in either 8 or 10lb. Though I think this will cost him bites but reduced losses, so probably the way to go.

Ideally though I'd suggest considering a different mainline, even if only dropping it down to 10lb or even 8lb but the OP stated he didn't wish to change.

 

[aebitim]

I can't fault gt80 or gr60 in 12lb for mainline on rocky rivers. I'm on the wye now.


I also always use the enterprise snag free clips for feeders or leads. Allow you to pull off the weight if snagged up.

Check them out.

Will do, but the pauls angling feeders are very inexpensive and I do get through quite a few of them, also use the korum feeders with a lead inside them [2 snap swivels] when trundling a bait into the pots as it stops them snagging so much. When using a lead I use the smallest cheapest bendioatronic snap swivel I can find as they open out under pressure.
Been experimenting with stren mono of late and it seems to have a really good abrasion resistance, not the most user friendly line though.

Keeping it simple and being prepared to re rig 50 times a day works for me, but the Wye is a river of many characters and can be fished in many ways.

 

[Jonathan Ackers]

Same as Keith on this one
Why complicate things, keep things simple and your time on the bank will be much more enjoyable! I have tried alsorts of hook length material and made all Manner of rigs, but this season I decided to go back to basics and fish 6lb pro gold straight through and just use double float stops on the lead.

I can't use braided hook links on my Wigan book anyway, never will understand that rule!

I didn't know that about braid, I was toying with trying it, I just looked it up on the Wigan site and it sounds like its due to issues on Heapey 1.

Interesting that you are using 6lb, I grew up on 2.6lb and 1.7lb hooklengths, even on the Ribble in pre barbel days ! I have just started up again and I've grudgingly stuck to using 8 and 10lb hook lengths through the summer despite the urge to fish for bites and go light. But I finally cracked and dropped to 5lb and hey presto the bites and fish came. Are you on 6lb for that reason ? I'm guessing it depends on the peg and the snags to some extent.

Have you fished the length in question in winter ? I went last week and got a chub and trout in sub 6C conditions. There doesn't appear to be any deep water of note so I'm wondering if its going to always be a struggle unless we have some really mild weather.