Repeat captures

I've had 2 personal best Barbel over the last 4 days. 10.10 and 10.12.

I'll rephrase that: I've had the same Barbel twice. Yes, the photos show a distinctive mark and an unusual shape to one of it's fins. One was caught on Sunday night and one on Wednesday. One at 11 p.m and one at 11.15 p.m. Similar areas but not the same swim. Same bait each time.

I know recaptures happen but after 3 days??

It makes me wonder if prolific rivers actually hold fewer fish than we thought, and we keep catching the same ones.

Any thoughts?

Traveller or Pope, what do you think?

Severn barbs have been known to move huge distances between captures......sometimes in a short space of time.
Makes you really wonder just how may there really are?

To be serious, I think on the bigger rivers you do get this migration but on smaller rivers the fish tend to be less nomadic perhaps having certain specific lies and adjacent feeding areas.

Ric are you counting the bigger weight as your PB as you already caught the fish previously?

During the 60s, we in the Northern Specimen Group with the Permission of the Yorkshire River Board did some tagging of barbel in the Swale, Ouse and Ure.

We found that some barbel travelled up to 14 miles of river in a week or so.

We gave up the tagging as it was damaging the fish. Pictures of this tagging, taken by yours truly are to be found in Peter Wheat's book: "The Fighting Barbel"

Truth is Nigel, I was disappointed to find out it was the same fish.

I've fished the river a lot over the last year. It's a 90 mile return trip and after 50 plus Barbel; to get my first double was fantastic. To follow it up with another next trip was just great. To find out it was the same fish was a bit sobering!

Yes, my personal best is the higher weight of 10.12.

It's interesting that the higher weight was 3 days after it was caught previously. It can't have been too stressed!

Ron, did the monitoring depend on catching the tagged fish or did you have some sort of radio signal to keep tabs?

There was some similar monitoring done on dace I recall and they would move a mile back and forth in a day.

Ron

I don't know the rivers you mention. Are they fairly uniform rivers, in terms of character, flow, depth etc?

I'd be quite suprised if Ribble fish travel in this way. There are some very shallow, very fast sections, even lower down the river. I really can't see many fish regularly swimming up these bits. Why should they, when they can live a comfortable existance where they are? Also, various bits of the river are renowned for different things. One of my club's stretches for example; produces lots and lots of Barbel in the 1 to 3 pound range. These fish rarely show further downstream.

It depended on catching the tagged fish Nigel.

The Swale could hardly be called a uniform river. It has shallows, deeps bends, gravel and sandy bottom with a lot of streamer weed in places.

On a part of the Kennet I use to fish the head of barbel was very low and the same fish were caught time after time. They had a fish count last year and decided to stock more barbel which could only be down to low numbers.
I also think they decided to stock as the membership was pretty low and they needed to encourage anglers back. How long they will stay within this area, we will have to wait and see.

I used to fish a stretch on the Lodden for the good Barbel it was rumoured to hold. However, after 2 seasons of haunting the place, as I do, I noticed that a lot of the fish looked very familiar. After a while it dawned on me that the stretch in question was not as prolific as i thought, especially as the so called 'record' for the stretch ended up in my net three times in a very short space of time.

On the third capture I decided not to fish the stretch ever again as I felt a bit sorry for the fish as it was becoming increasingly obvious they had nowhere to hide.

I suspect my next statement will cause some outrage amongst some, but here goes: I vowed after this episode never to fish a small river for Barbel again simply because I felt they had nowhere to hide. At least on big rivers like the Thames, Trent, Severn, Avon or Wye if the pressure got too much they had the space to travel elsewhere. Especially as the Barbel has become the 'new carp' with Angling pressure at an all time high.

If its the one from os I've had it three time Ric, my mate's had it once, another guy I know says he's had it twice.

It really likes the hook in its mouth does that one!
Lowest weight was 914 103 top weight 1012. Ian 1010

Apologies to those who've heard this story before but it's worth re-telling for its relevance to this thread.

About 25 to 30 years or ago me and a couple of mates used to fish the middle Severn with some of the Coventry SG lads. Some used keepnets and some didn't. Remember this was in the days before the use of keepnets was punishable at the gibbet and when the middle Severn was rife with barbel in the 3lb to 5lb class.

Those who used keepnets did so because they believed that putting the barbel straight back spooked the others and reduced their chances of catching more fish.

But it became very clear after several weeks that those who didn't use a keepnet almost always caught the most fish.

So we bagan to take more notice and inspected each fish for the tiniest mark that would identify it. The answer of course was that those who didn't use a keepnet were catching several of their barbel twice in the same session.

This happens a lot more than most anglers would believe, not just with barbel (but particularly with barbel as they're not the sharpest fish knife in the drawer) in that all species are caught more than once over a short period and often in the same session. Or at least they are where they're fairly prolific.

You only realise it's happening when there is an obvious identifying mark. When there isn't, or you don't notice it, it doesn't register as a repeat capture.

That's why mirror carp appear to be caught more repeatedly than any other species, not because they are but due to their unique scale patterns making them easily identifiable.

Phil

Yes I was where you suggest. Downstream of the bend, just before it shallows up. So I had reasonable flow (for the current low water conditions!!) If you could confirm you and your friends caught it in the same area I'll mark it down as a resident, and move on!

Cheers

Neither are tench the most clever either Graham.

I had a tench eating maggots in my keepnet only this June!!

Obviously a zero stress condition. We often credit fish with too much intelligence.

Of all the fish in Britain I would put the chub as the most intelligent with the roach second. If we can actually call it "intelligence."

If we are not catching fish, the most obvious reason is they are not there.

What do you make about Keith Arthur's comments about the Traveller (still wrong to name fish!!) in AT this week. Do you think he is trying to make a link between recaptures and the impending demise of Britain's most famous beard?
I'm sure when the Traveller (no!!!) does die a debate wil rage about angling pressure regardless of the facts of the matter. (which for the record, i don't know...merely curious)

While on the recent BS fish in on the Wye a angler returned a Barbel of around 8Ib which imediatly settled on the bottom at his feet and started eating all the free offerings which had dropped in the marins.

me and a mate caught the same carp from the trent 7 miles and a couple of days apart.