Are barbel creatures of habit? - catching the same fish.

Mr Cholmondeley-Corker (PaSC) · Aug 26, 2010

A few weeks ago I caught a Ribble barbel that weighed in at 9-1. It was a very distinctive fish with a couple of sores on its left and a tatty anal fin.

Three weeks later I caught the same fish. I was fishing the same peg, with the bait cast to the same place. Same rig and same hook bait.

I also caught it around the same time +/- 10 mins.

In each case I had been feeding the swim for 4.5 hours before I caught it.

This fish clearly seems to be a creature of habit.

But what I can't help wondering is where was the fish before I hooked it?

Was it sat in the swim, dormant for most of the time and then started to feed at 'feed time'?

Was it further downstream feeding its way up the river?

Was it downstream dormant and at 'feed time' picked up on my bait trail?

PS Iwas going to post a picture, but it's so chuffin fiddly to get FM to accept it that I gave up!

geoffmaynard · Aug 26, 2010

Mat - have a listen to what Stu Clough says on Martin James BBC Radio Lancs show At the Waters Edge. It was on last weeks broadcast. You can hear it again on iplayer.

The Piker · Aug 26, 2010

A couple of weeks a go on tight lines Keith Arthur caught a barbel on the Thames,and he said he had caught it before...

The problem is they all look so much alike,unless they have split fins,humpbacks ect..

But i would bet we all have caught the same fish again and not even give it a thought.........:w

Sean Meeghan · Aug 26, 2010

20 June 2006 on the Swale. I lost a very good barbel then landed a fish of 11lb 8oz with a very distinctive scar.

17 June 2009, less than 20 yards downstream of where I had my fish, Adam Perkin landed two 11lbers, one of which was the same as my fish 3 years earlier.

Barbel are very much creatures of habit (as are other fish).

ED (The ORIGINAL and REAL one) · Aug 26, 2010

Sean Meeghan said:
20 June 2006 on the Swale. I lost a very good barbel then landed a fish of 11lb 8oz with a very distinctive scar.

17 June 2009, less than 20 yards downstream of where I had my fish, Adam Perkin landed two 11lbers, one of which was the same as my fish 3 years earlier.

Barbel are very much creatures of habit (as are other fish).

As are anglers ........

Jeff Woodhouse · Aug 26, 2010

The Piker said:
A couple of weeks a go on tight lines Keith Arthur caught a barbel on the Thames,and he said he had caught it before...

He did. I saw it on both occasions. Very distinctive body shape.

This is it. "and two more bank anglers arrived, also piking." That was us.

Here's the picture from 1998. I think the barbel in question is the one in his left hand. The one in his right was carrying a terrible sore when he caught it. Back row (l-r): you have Peter Stone (in the cap), Geoff Savin who was weighmaster, and meself looking fat as always.

jeff-woody-albums-strange-things-seen-whilst-fishing-picture2162-keith-arthur-1998.jpg

Should say here: thanks to IPC magazines for the picture - taken by Ray Walton BTW.

quickcedo · Aug 26, 2010

All people of a certain background/country are thick. All people of a certain background/ country are......
All foxes raid hen houses
All rabbits freeze in headlights
You get the point.
Are fish creatures of habit? Some are. Some aint.

slime monster · Aug 26, 2010

MarkTodd said:
Are fish creatures of habit? Some are. Some aint.

They all swim eat and cr@p and do little else

quickcedo · Aug 27, 2010

That would sound just like the ex wife apart from the swimming bit. Far to much like hard work.:wh However she did make up for it by being a dab hand at picking her nose, a nasty habit if ever there was one.

Mick Coleman · Aug 28, 2010

October 2005 caught a 12lb 4oz Barbel from the Hampshire Avon at Lifelands.
August 2006 my mate caught the same fish weighing 12lb 6oz from the same swim.

Barbel obviously have their favourite areas to feed etc much like Carp can be caught from the same swim time after time.
If on a sparsely populated stretch of river you keep putting bait in in one certain area then fish will obviously keep returning to this spot to feed, ( the art of prebaiting).

Mick

Dave Burr · Aug 28, 2010

Logic dictates that some fish will remain in a domicile whilst other will move on and inhabit new areas otherwise you would only have barbel in the swim they were introduced in.

Big barbel are usually easier to recognise than the little fella's so we notice resident big fish. I know of many that come from the same swim year in year out, others that move over half a mile or so and of course, those that put in just one appearance. These may be just passing through or they may not get fooled again.

dezza · Aug 28, 2010

One of the rules of thumb for locating barbel on the Trent was to look for a gravel bottom on the outside of a bend. Trent barbel habitually populate such spots.

The problem these days, is that there are so many barbel in the Trent, they are everywhere,

Sean Meeghan · Aug 28, 2010

Fish make seasonal migrations and if you know the timing and the route you'll do a lot better than most. The two big fish I mentioned can be caught in a certain area for about the first month of the season, then they move upstream (always upstream) about half a mile to where they (or at least one of them) spend the rest of the season. Other barbel on the length can be caught in other areas early in the season and then may move downstream. The bream shoals on the Yorkshire Ouse also have migration routes that never vary.

Some fish might be stay at homes, but they will move over the year and they tend to move in small groups. If a group of anglers pool their record some interesting trends often emerge. It's not just random behaviour folks!

flightliner · Aug 30, 2010

Back in the nineties I was fishing a strech of the Trent, simple feeder gear with sweetcorn as bait. I had a good pull and hooked what I thought was a good bream but was surprised that the fish turned out to be a barbel.It had an obvious congenital deformity towards its back end which viewed from above looked like a bend in the road.It wieghed (if memory serves me correctly) 3-9.I returned the fish and carried on fishing , only to take the same fish twice more before at the end of the day!.
Over the next few years myself and others had that fish on numerous occasions-- often twice in the same session-- It was a sucker for corn and in one swim we just stopped using it as bait. The fish always went by a nicknane along with a forename of its last captor. The last time I saw it on the bank it had gone to a little over five pounds.

barbel basher · Sep 5, 2010

One of the best chub & barbel pegs I know about on the river Wharfe (North Yorkshire) is were the locals from village opposite venue come down to feed the ducks ! So is a constant stream of bread, seeds and whatever else they decide to feed them going in regular !
So going back to are barbel creatures of habit There are a couple of very distinctive barbel one got badly deformed pectoral fin come out of this peg so if not there all the time have definitely built it into there petrol pattern ?

Stewart Moss 2 · Sep 2, 2011

Mick Coleman, I've been trying to contact you (without success), could you please email me on stewmoss@hotmail.co.uk, thanks!

Bob Hornegold · Sep 2, 2011

I use to think that Barbel pretty much stayed in the area where they were caught, because I had plenty of repeat captures from the same swims.

But an Elctro Tagging Survey proved that the Fishers Green/King Weir Barbel were very mobile.

The Barbel were moving up and down the river a great deal, I know this is only a relatively short stretch (some 4miles or so), but the Barbel were always on the move.

Passing the 3 Transducers many times in the two years of the trial.

When there was a Fish kill, hardly a Barbel was caught for a long time, but a well known Fishery Scientist told me he reckoned the Barbel and Chub had moved away in front of the toxin and into the Relief Channel, where it had become weaker.

The Barbel and Chub that had survived, made it back into the Old River and these are the few remaining Barbel and Chub you find now.

Bob

richiekelly · Sep 2, 2011

i belive that where swims are being fished day in day out [ i know of swims like this on the trent] and lots of food is going in that some barbel will stay in those areas although not all fish that stay will be caught, other fish are i think more nomadic and are usualy the bigger fish that do not want to compete with other fish, i know of a very snaggy swim on the trent that holds a lot of fish during the day but fish it at night and you would think there were no fish there, this may be because the fish leave the snags for other areas feeling safer under the cover of darkness, on the river i am fishing at the moment i think the fish are very nomadic as despite fishing a short stretch of about 300 yards i have had very few recaptures [although its difficult to tell with smaller fish] and the majority of fish have no hookmarks at all, one particular fish that i have seen but not caught is easily known by a scar on its flank, i have seen this fish a fair way both upstream and downstream of the area i fish also in the area i fish so this fish is very nomadic.

cheef87 · Sep 2, 2011

me and my mate have caught a 8lb barbel on the severn 5 times between us in two weeks lol form the same strecth the last time i caught it it had 3 hooks in its mouth lol

richiekelly · Sep 2, 2011

cheef87 said:
me and my mate have caught a 8lb barbel on the severn 5 times between us in two weeks lol form the same strecth the last time i caught it it had 3 hooks in its mouth lol

why is a fish with 3 hooks in its mouth a matter for laughing out loud!

Are barbel creatures of habit? - catching the same fish.

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