Apologies for resurrecting an old thread but, as the new 2019 season draws near, I wanted to share my recent experiences Barbel fishing on the Ribble and I'm interested in what others think. I’ve only been fishing it regularly for barbel for the last 10 years, but have noticed a slow decline in my catches each year. Whereas, in good conditions, a half to a dozen Barbel in a session wasn’t unusual, I didn’t catch a half dozen all season last year. Although I have a young family and don’t get out that often, there’s certainly been a big drop off in my catches and, anecdotally, speaking to other anglers most have similar experiences. I don’t use any of the other forums. However, I’m posting here to add one other contributing factor that may contribute to falling catch rates that we anglers rarely like to admit to… could the Barbel be outwitting us?
I was lucky enough to live near and regularly fish the upper Great Ouse when it was at it’s peak 20 years ago, although I wasn't very good at it! Initially, using similar crude tactics to those I now fish on the Ribble, I caught very little; maybe 1 Barbel every 6 – 10 sessions. Over the years of observing the heavily pressured Barbel, avoiding rigs and baits in the clear Ouse water I modified my rig until, by the standards of those days, it was fairly sophisticated. I ended up using critically balanced baits, high tech hooklengths/anti-eject rigs and most importantly, back leads and upped my catch rate to one fish a session (these were BIG fish). The Ouse Barbel would drop back 20 m downstream of any tight line entering the water to a lead or feeder, back leads would solve that issue. So when I first fished the Ribble, using relatively crude tactics, I was amazed at how easy the naïve Barbel were. But the Ribble is fished more heavily than The Great Ouse was then, prolific swims are occupied almost every day in summer. The fish are more localised and those spots heavily targeted with repeat catches of the same fish being very common. These fish must be getting educated and learning to avoid standard rigs and baits. Last season, when the water was very low, I managed to wade about a bit and fish the Ribble, Great Ouse style – spotting barbel and fishing for them. Although the river was crammed full of barbel, it was useless, the fish dropped back as soon as my line entered the water and wouldn’t touch my rig in the clear, low water. Now the rigs I employed on the upper Ouse are impractical on the Ribble – backleading mostly impossible due to boulders/bedrock etc. But the Barbel anglers I’ve spoken to who are still catching are trotting… a mobile, smaller bait still fools them. This is the same on super pressured stretches of southern rivers like The Royalty where static baits are useless now.
I’m not arguing this is the only issue but that it may be contributing. Pressured carp are known to rapidly become very difficult to fool, why not Barbel? It’s easier to blame otters, cormorants, water quality than change your fishing style...