The bad one
Well-known member
Not from my point of view, the suppression of the numbers is starting to pay dividends as per the silver fish being caught on the river.
Barbel fishing on the River Ribble - discuss
- Thread starter fred hall
- Start date
The OP had no mention of predation of any sort,just bemoaning the downturn in barbel fishing on the Ribble,a matter which cormorants have little bearing on as I see it,the point being the conversation is continually mutating,your question is as valid as any other...
Obviously a long way from me unfortunately,as I'd love to,especially in these days of plummeting barbel fishing in the south,the furthest 'north'
I've fished for barbel is the Trent,I bow to local knowledge and know Phil and Brian have that in spades on the Ribble,I have acquaintances who fish the river too,so it's nice to have gen.rivers such as the Wye,Severn,Ribble along with the Yorkshire spate rivers have the best chance of holding decent barbel populations imo,the rest I fear for unfortunately...
I've fished for barbel is the Trent,I bow to local knowledge and know Phil and Brian have that in spades on the Ribble,I have acquaintances who fish the river too,so it's nice to have gen.rivers such as the Wye,Severn,Ribble along with the Yorkshire spate rivers have the best chance of holding decent barbel populations imo,the rest I fear for unfortunately...lutra
Well-known member
I don't see how it could be better positioned? So that's half a no from me.
How much of the upturn in silver fish on the river is down to the licenses is a much harder question to answer. You would need to Know a couple of things that I don't think we fully do to answer that properly.
Firstly how much of an impact do the licenses have? There are still cormorants on the river and as they have wing so there always will be for me.
Second silver fish numbers are better than I have ever known them despite there being cormorants on the river. So how much impact do cormorants really have, if a river has healthy self sustaining stocks?
So yes I do have my doubts of how effective the licenses are.
David L Johnson
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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...
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...
flightliner
Well-known member
Agree 100% with much of what you say, particularly about smaller , moving baits.
After the 07 floods I told a friend I had done with big feeders and leads on the Trent and unless absolutely a must do with floods etc I wouldn't go back to using them.
From then on it was float all the way.
Results were remarkable as very often Barbel seemed to have delayed feeding until late afternoon/ nightfall on some of the more popular reaches.
I put it down to fish becoming wary of static baits but one trundling downstream beneath a float presented no threat.
I caught on a variety of baits, pellet, s/corn, meat, flake, worms and maggots.
One week I had three five hour sessions when I had approximately 350lb of Barbel when guys fishing heavy feeders struggled to catch .
Maybe they did much later but I was long gone by then.
My best amongst many double figure fish was a superb 14lb-1oz beauty. (Not my biggest but I hold it in equally high esteem)
As you say, keep thinking and don't be afraid to ring the changes!
After the 07 floods I told a friend I had done with big feeders and leads on the Trent and unless absolutely a must do with floods etc I wouldn't go back to using them.
From then on it was float all the way.
Results were remarkable as very often Barbel seemed to have delayed feeding until late afternoon/ nightfall on some of the more popular reaches.
I put it down to fish becoming wary of static baits but one trundling downstream beneath a float presented no threat.
I caught on a variety of baits, pellet, s/corn, meat, flake, worms and maggots.
One week I had three five hour sessions when I had approximately 350lb of Barbel when guys fishing heavy feeders struggled to catch .
Maybe they did much later but I was long gone by then.
My best amongst many double figure fish was a superb 14lb-1oz beauty. (Not my biggest but I hold it in equally high esteem)
As you say, keep thinking and don't be afraid to ring the changes!
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