Newbie rod confussion

I'm fairly new to barbel fishing, I've had a few upto 6lb on a feeder rod this summer but I'm feeling under gunned. The river is fairly narrow and the flow not too fast.

I'm looking at getting a barbel rod but I'm a little confused by the specimen rods and the avon rods. With an Avon rod are the quiver tips designed for barbel fishing or are they a lighter tip for say chub fishing? With an Avon rods hollow tip or even a specimen rod how do you detect the bite if ledgering? Do you need to use an alarm like when carp fishing?

I don't class myself as an expert but for what it's worth:

Avon Rods:
Avon rods are usually designed to be used for fish like smaller Barbel, big Chub and Roach & the like and lines up to around the 6 or 7lb mark and can be used both for float fishing (within reason) and legering and nowerdays usually also come with both an Avon top section and a Quivertip section.

Specialist or Specimen Rods:
There are several different forms of Specimen rod and some (such as the Greys Prodigy Specialist rod) come with two avon type tips of different test curves but no quivertip section; this is an excellent type of rod for touch legering for Barbel and the two different test curved avon type tips enable you to cover both normal conditions and flood conditions.
I have one of these that has both a 1.5lb TC top section and a 2.0lb tc top section so can be used for Barbel in both normal conditions and in flood conditions and for close range Carp fishing.
I also have a Drennan Specialist rod that has a 1.25lb Test curve but also comes with a fighting curve further down the blank of 2.25lb so as you can see Specialiist rods come in various different formats and test curves.

Barbel Rods:
These usually come with an Avon type top section which usually comes in either a 1.5lb, 1.7lb or 2.0lb test curve; plus a quiver tip section with several different strength quivertips. Some Barbel rods come with two or more avon type tips and don't include a quivertip section.

They are Ideal for Barbel because they usually have a strongish through action enabling the angler to both fight a powerful fish right under the rod tip and at the same time exert a fair amount of pressure when trying to turn and control a Barbel.

I only ever use one Barbel rod at a time because I am always expecting a run and would rather use 100% of my time concentrating on just one rod cast into the most productive spot; instead of spending 50% of my attention on each of two rods cast into different places so I never need to use an alarm but I suppose it depends on whether your takes are few and far between or not.
Also I am often lifting my rod tip slightly and letting my bait trundle a few inches and feeling for bites and other indications through my fingers on the line, and that would be very hard to do if I used two rods. I often get a bite while the bait is trundling.

I really can't add much to what Keith has said. For small river barbelling i'd go for a rod with a test curve of around 1.5lb or 1.75lb. Twin tip rods that give a choice of test curves are OK and may give you an option in flood conditions, but they are not really necessary. Quiver tips are good for fishing upstream as they give much better indication of drop back bites. They also help in low clear conditions when fishing with light weights. If it was all I could afford then I'd be perfectly happy to fish with a rod with a single avon type top section.

Bite indication is generally not a problem! I tend to use a bait runner type reel which gives me an audible indication of a bite if my attention has wondered. Be careful when using bait runners in snaggy swims though.

Sean,just the thought of someone using a baitrunner in a snaggy swim sent a shudder down my back.

Some good information been posted here. All I would add is just because a rod says Barbel or Tench or whatever on it doesn't mean it is or is not suitable. For instance I bought a little TFG 8 - 10ft alrounder this year to use on the canal where I live. After using it I soon realised it had more to offer, so I took it barbel fishing on some small rivers. It's good fun to use and I've now landed Barbel to 11lb 2oz on it.
I think we have all been conned into thinking we need a different rod for every river and every type of fish, not so.
Good luck with the Barbel fishing.

Cheers for that fella's, certainly answered my question.

Just read your post and it looks like you got some useful replies.
It certainly can be confusing if it helps I fish the tidal Trent which is a big powerful river. In normal conditions i use a 13ft Porky Pig, this is a great rod if you can find one.
When its a bit flooded i change to a 23/4 lb test rod that was built specially for this type of fishing, it has a good through action, i could tell you where it was made but i am new to this site and not sure if it is correct to mention specific suppliers.
If your hair rigging you don't need to worry about bite detection in my experience.

As I understand it you're OK to name or recommend a supplier as long as there's no commercial tie in with them.

Welcome to all the new 'faces' its nice to see you all.

Thanks for that i didn't want to break any rules. anyway it was made by Fosters of Birmingham.]

I like to use my old carp rods for barbel (11 ft daiwa whisker kevlar tournaments) in 1.75 and 2 1/4 lb test. They have a brilliant soft throught action ideal for barbel. The other favourite of mine for barbel fishing are my shimano diaflash 2lb test rods.

I think with barbel you have to fish to the flow and not the fish, same rules as sea fishing , ie, it's the sea (or here, the river conditions) that dictate the rod you need to cope. For instance, the JW Avon Quiver at 1 1/4 test will cope with any barbel, but it will be getting a little out of its depth in a moderate flow plus strong fish. In a proper flood it will barely cope with the pull of the water on the line let alone a fish as well, and that is when you need a broomstick of a rod, a 3 pounder in the worst conditions, so to my mind you buy always buy your rods not because the manufacturer says its a barbel, carp, tench, roach, what have you, rod, but to suit the wildly varying conditions you will encounter in any full barbel season.

So you actually need three rods, or rather three pairs of rods! Expensive business is barbelling, innit?

rufus said:

I think with barbel you have to fish to the flow and not the fish, same rules as sea fishing , ie, it's the sea (or here, the river conditions) that dictate the rod you need to cope. For instance, the JW Avon Quiver at 1 1/4 test will cope with any barbel, but it will be getting a little out of its depth in a moderate flow plus strong fish. In a proper flood it will barely cope with the pull of the water on the line let alone a fish as well, and that is when you need a broomstick of a rod, a 3 pounder in the worst conditions, so to my mind you buy always buy your rods not because the manufacturer says its a barbel, carp, tench, roach, what have you, rod, but to suit the wildly varying conditions you will encounter in any full barbel season.

So you actually need three rods, or rather three pairs of rods! Expensive business is barbelling, innit?

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Put like that, dedicated single-species fishing can appear expensive, especially if you believe the hype and what's written on the rod, but when viewed from the perspective of an all-round coarse angler, it doesn't appear quite so costly. Suppose you had the following rods:

13 foot general float rod for lines below 4lb
11 foot 1.25lb twin-tip avon/quiver type rod for lines 4lb to 8lb
11 or 12 foot 1.75lb specimen rod for lines between 8 and 12lb
12 foot 2.5lb stepped-up specimen rod for lines between 12 and 18lb

you could cover just about any eventuality, from trotting for roach and dace to big carp, pike and catfish. As soon as you start buying rods with names of fish on, it gets confusing; most carp rods for instance are fast-actioned and sparsely ringed for casting, even though ninety percent of the time they're used by people fishing less than sixty yards out. This makes them pretty useless for pike. By all means get a specialist distance-friendly carp rod if you do a lot of that sort of thing, but the all-round angler would be better served with a range of general purpose rods.

I don't buy the arguments put forward by people who say you need a fast action for this, a slow action for that. True float rods aside, a decent progressive action such as found in Harrison's avon and stepped up avon rods will do anything asked of it.

A stepped up big-fish rod, having a test curve of 2.5lb and a progressive, though action is a very useful instrument; not only will it be ideal for nearly all pike and carp fishing occasions, it will serve as a heavy barbel rod in flood conditions and even as a bass plugging rod for the odd seaside trip.

MarkTodd said:

Some good information been posted here. All I would add is just because a rod says Barbel or Tench or whatever on it doesn't mean it is or is not suitable. For instance I bought a little TFG 8 - 10ft alrounder this year to use on the canal where I live. After using it I soon realised it had more to offer, so I took it barbel fishing on some small rivers. It's good fun to use and I've now landed Barbel to 11lb 2oz on it.
I think we have all been conned into thinking we need a different rod for every river and every type of fish, not so.
Good luck with the Barbel fishing.

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Having had a day on the Teme with Mark last week and seen the rod he mentions,i got one myself off of flea-bay,a lovely little rod with a good progressive fish playing action,before seeing this rod i probably wouldnt have dreamed of getting one,the rod obviously isnt suited to floodwater conditions,but how many genuinely are?

alan whittington said:

Having had a day on the Teme with Mark last week and seen the rod he mentions,i got one myself off of flea-bay,a lovely little rod with a good progressive fish playing action,before seeing this rod i probably wouldnt have dreamed of getting one,the rod obviously isnt suited to floodwater conditions,but how many genuinely are?

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Floodwater barbel fishing is always a compromise - much like shore fishing for bass in a rough tide. 6oz breakaway leads and heavy beachcasters are not much fun to play average-sized bass on, and the same goes for barbel. Even a ten pounder is not going to show its true potential if caught on a 3lb test rod, 15lb line and a 6 or 8oz lead. If you really must fish under those conditions, the tackle obviously has to be up to the job, but personally I'd sooner choose an alternative species/location and wait for conditions to be more favourable. I fish for fun after all.

Its strange how often the sea fishing parallels crop up in barbel fishing! Tripods, rods angled at the sky, heavy leads, white painted rod tips. I'm not surprised at all. The parallels are right. Barbel are the only coarse species where you will come up against conditions roughly equivalent to those experienced while bass fishing in exposed seas. It's never quite like fishing a big surf on a strong tide run with added weed, but often not far off!

I like the challenge of a flood but find it wears me down coping with all the **** running down the line...

Even the thickest rod won't cope with that for very long.

I do agree that a lifetime collection of various rods will enable anyone to cope with most conditions - you just have to get your mind off labels and onto functionality.

Quite so. In my early barbelling days I used a rod of 1.25 lb tc and 6 lb line. I dont recall ever losing a fish or feeling undergunned but then barbel generally were much smaller and I never fished for them in winter. Nowadays I fish a 1.75lb tc and 10lb line because the barbel are much bigger and I fish almost exclusively in winter and I need that much in the bank because of the conditions I'm likely to encounter.

I have a beautiful "named" Barbel Rod that I rarely use now because I found that it simply cannot cope with a decent barb in any water.It is a delightful thing and extraordinarily versatile but hopelessly undergunned for barbel....but at the time I thought it was the ultimate barbel rod.

Its still a fantastic rod...just not for barbel never mind what the butt says. Functionality not labels as R says.

S-Kippy said:

I have a beautiful "named" Barbel Rod that I rarely use now because I found that it simply cannot cope with a decent barb in any water.It is a delightful thing and extraordinarily versatile but hopelessly undergunned for barbel....but at the time I thought it was the ultimate barbel rod.

Its still a fantastic rod...just not for barbel never mind what the butt says. Functionality not labels as R says.

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What is that rod S-kippy,im interested.

alan whittington said:

What is that rod S-kippy,im interested.

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Its a Guy Robb "Barbel Special". 12ft two piece ground down 1.6lb tc Harrison blank. Though the TC is said to be about 1-6 it doesn't feel like it.Pulls the most beautiful curve with a fish on I've ever experienced.

Like I said...a lovely rod but on the Kennet one day I had an 8lb barb and a 12 lb carp on it and I just could not get them back across the main flow. No extra water on...the rod was just bottomed out and as a result the fish took twice as long to land as they ought to have and were 3 times as knackered. I've never used it on a river for barbel since. Despite not being up to it it just isn't fair on the fish.

Lovely tench,bream,small carp rod and I even use it worming for sea trout & salmon but it just hasn't got the nuts for big barbel.

Its a damned long 12 ft too !

Skippy

When I returned to angling about five years ago I began to amass a selection of rods to suit the types of fishing I wished to pursue, which is mainly river fishing. This resulted in more rods than I really needed. I realised this season I have done the majority of my fishing which just one rod, a Harrison Avon 11 foot 1.6lb TC. and one reel a daiwa 3500 regal with 6lb or 8lb line. I have taken barbel, chub and perch with this set up. It has resulted in roving the river more with this single rod set up, touch legering and enjoyed my fishing more as a result, I have also caught more. It will not do flood water fishing and prefer a specialist float rod.