Do Wye barbel anglers catch salmon?

There's a strong feeling in some salmon circles that barbel anglers on the Wye will catch salmon as by-catch whilst fishing bait, worms etc, which the salmon anglers are forbidden to use.

Do you know if this happens? If so, is it a regular occurrence or an extremely rare one. Or does it never happen? Because I think this is a bit of a fairy story which needs some clarification.

Have you, or do you know anyone who has ever caught a salmon whilst barbel fishing on the river Wye? (Or elsewhere for that matter)

On the ribble the Elite game clubs on the upper reaches accuse the course guys further downstream for ''poaching'' their precious fish, in reality, 99.9% (you will get the odd fool!) return any game fish they catch and contrary to what those ''self important'' game anglers think most course anglers are OK folk!

I've no doubt the vast majority would be returned - because that's what coarse anglers do - IF they were actually caught by coarse anglers. Are they?

You have a good point their Geoff!

I have caught salmon on bread in the winter off the Teme. And a mate caught 1 on meat a few years back so it does happen.

geoffmaynard said:

I've no doubt the vast majority would be returned - because that's what coarse anglers do - IF they were actually caught by coarse anglers. Are they?

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Who knows ? Given the way salmon runs on the Wye have declined over the last 10-15 years I doubt it even though I believe last year was the best year the Wye has had for ages. The odd fish might get taken but nobody is going to own up to it as its unlikely they would have had a full licence. I can't see many people publicly bragging about it.

I dont think the decline in Wye salmon runs can be laid at the feet of coarse anglers. Its a nice theory if you are a game fisher but the Wye has been in decline for a long time....long before it became a popular coarse venue which only really took off as a result of the declining salmon runs.

Pure speculation on my part but I am much more inclined to think fairy story rather than serious problem. I fished the Wye for salmon years back & dont think I was within 50 miles of one.Caught a load of shad though which was great sport on light fly gear but you can't do that any more.

Anyway...as you rightly say Geoff its not really in the out & out coarse angler's "psyche" to knock fish on the head so even if coarse anglers DO take a few salmon I suspect most would go back.

I game fish and even though I am entitled to keep [say] a sea trout I dont really like to. I will take one for the table but I have often wondered what I would do if I got a real lump. I dont think I have it in me to kill such a fish and neither, I suspect, do most of us that are not exclusively game anglers. Different mind set...and I'm not saying one or t'other is right or wrong ,just different. My mate Alex would not think twice about taking a sea trout or salmon because he is a game angler first whereas I'm not.

One day I hope to have to make that difficult decision but I know that if its not a glass case specimen then its going back.

I have been a coarse and game fisher all my life (bar 4.5 years at the start [coarse] and 6 years [game], but when I take a look at the Wye thread on FFF - Wye Results 2012 - Fly Fishing Forums - all 147 pages of it and 60,000-plus views and all its suspicion, ignorance, prejudice and sourness, I think "What hope for river(s) and for us?"

From someone who had some very nice Wye salmon in the days that the river comfortably "did" several thousand rod-caught fish a year and who one day netted a 38-pounder for my host, then had 16- and 18-pound fish after he had said to me "Stick at it; it'll be your turn...".

He and his kind didn't bicker and blame others, they just fished.

But do barbel anglers catch salmon Paul?

Wot? On leaded boilies, pellets and paste? Not too many.

Couldn't say myself, I don't fish for Wye barbel. I fish for barbel on the northern rivers though and I don't know anyone, ever, who has caught a salmon on barbel tactics/bait.
Very rarely, a Wye kelt may get taken by a pike fisherman on a deadbait. They are always returned, no pike fisherman is interested in a kelt, nor would they be interested in a fresh fish.
In truth, salmon anglers need to grow up and live in the modern age. Coarse anglers are interested in sport, pikers in particular and it's the game fraternity who are the fishmongers. Frankly I'm disgusted in this attitude, game anglers should refrain from judging people by their own poor standards.

Well said, Eric.

You can't imagine how p'd off they get when they hear the same from a pre-supposed "One of Us"...

Must confess Geoff, having had a brief glance at the thread Paul linked to, seems to me the last thing this forum needs is to get dragged into that poisonous load of **********. Makes the Barbel wars seem tame.

Sadly there will always be an element of the game fishing fraternity which blames all evils and ills on coarse fishing, along with all the other usual suspects. Equally sadly there will be people who become defensive and use inflammatory and inappropriate epithets like "fishmonger" in relation to the game fraternity.

Really not sure why you think there is any merit in starting a thread about it here on a coarse fishing forum, just asking for a cross forum war.

More importantly, do salmon anglers catch barbel??!!!! If so then how many feel the blow of a priest?

Geoff in 40+ years of river fishing 30 years of that on mixed rivers, I've hooked just 3 salmon, 2 on worm and 1 on pellet.
The fist was on Cumbrian R Eden back in the 1970s fishing for chub and the Eden was one of the best salmon rivers in the country at that time.

The second was on the Ribble about 8 years ago, again fishing for chub on worm.

The third, 3 years ago on the Severn on pellet, in all cases the fish were lost. The first two were hooked came out of the water bang back in and snapped off.

The last one was more interesting as I was fishing for barbel with 12 lb line, adequate you would think to handle a salmon. Not this ****** I hit it thinking it was a barbel under a bush 15 yards below me. Within 5 seconds of hitting it, it had stripped 50 yds of line off me going up river. Where it leaped out, a fish of over 25 lb. I bent the 1 3/4 lb barbel rod round into the butt to turn it, which it promptly did. This just made it more mad than it was already and it decided the Severn Estuary, some 70 miles away, was the place it was going, with the rod way past the point it really should be and the real fear from me that it was going to go bang at any moment
Thankfully the hook hold gave some 120 yards down river.
I just sat there wondering what had just happened to me and ****ing myself laughing at the event.

So assuming I'd landed that fish what would I have done clubbed to death? I was alone on the remote length, no one would know. Not on your life! Yes I'd have weighed it without doubt, but it would have gone back alive. You just don't kill any fish that can fight like that........ever!

As someone who bailiffs for two clubs on the Ribble and talks to many members of those clubs, I've had only two reports of coarse members hooking into salmon in 8 years, neither landing the fish they've hooked.

Both clubs also have lengths on the Wye and never in this time have I had any reports from members I talk to about hooking salmon on that river whilst barbel fishing.
So yes, very occasionally a salmon my get hooked and even landed by a coarse angler, they may even illegally take that fish, but the instances are so remote that the salmon stocks in either river are not in danger or being damaged by them.
In my view the reports of coarse anglers taking salmon in any numbers on either river are Country Myths.

One final point I'd make is, many of the salmon anglers I see on the river are not very good anglers for the fish they are fishing for. All the gear and no idea types! The vast majority of fish caught on the two clubs lengths are caught by the same anglers.

I fear the salmon anglers watching the fearful decline of the species revert to human nature and have to blame somebody/something for said decline,the worst of it is on the vast majority of rivers coarse fish are also on a downward spiral of sorts,sad that fellow anglers cant see each others problems,but the class distinction still exists,of aloofness in game angling,less than it was,but still evident,remember 20-25 years ago you would have been lucky to coarse fish vast amounts of the Wye,unless the landowner gave special dispensation.

Windy said:

Must confess Geoff, having had a brief glance at the thread Paul linked to, seems to me the last thing this forum needs is to get dragged into that poisonous load of **********. Makes the Barbel wars seem tame

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That thread has nothing to do with my question. It seems to mainly centre around how good or bad the Wye and Usk Foundation has done since it's creation; its highly entertaining with some very clever and informed people contributing on both sides.

I've probably hooked no more than about 5 salmon whilst coarse fishing in my entire life and these all when trotting. The ratio would be about 3 or 4 kelts and one grilse. I don't ever remember a spring fish. I have never hooked a salmon whilst barbel fishing and don't know anyone else who has either.

I think it must happen, Geoff. My brother has hooked two salmon on the Severn while worm-legering - and caught one of them. And strange things do happen, don't they? What about my 24lb pike on static lunny last year!

Some years ago I was on holiday near glencoe and was doing a bit of spinning near the old Alcan factory on a burn where the locals had free fishing. I caught (by sheer luck) a 9lb sea trout! after retuning the gorgeous beast (oh, and she was gorgeous) the local lads looked on in dismay because I had put her back!

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Eric Edwards said:

Couldn't say myself, I don't fish for Wye barbel. I fish for barbel on the northern rivers though and I don't know anyone, ever, who has caught a salmon on barbel tactics/bait.
Very rarely, a Wye kelt may get taken by a pike fisherman on a deadbait. They are always returned, no pike fisherman is interested in a kelt, nor would they be interested in a fresh fish.
In truth, salmon anglers need to grow up and live in the modern age. Coarse anglers are interested in sport, pikers in particular and it's the game fraternity who are the fishmongers. Frankly I'm disgusted in this attitude, game anglers should refrain from judging people by their own poor standards.

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Well said Eric,
A the years that I was a fly fisherman, I never took one fish from a river (the Derbyshire Derwent mostly) as it was for the sport I did it. If I wanted fish for the table then it was off up to ladybower or one of the other put and take waters.

To be fair to gamefishers, lads, please note that virtually all of them now, except a minority of die-hard Neanderthals, libertarians and fishmongers, now practice Catch and Release - for wild browns, for sea-trout, for salmon. There were some bitter wars fought in the Press and on the Internet in the 1990s and early '00s about C&R, with people like me - "Nothing but a blasted coarse-fisher ... I don't want to be and will NEVER be a coarse-fisher ... harrumph! [etc]" really losing friends!

Geoff, I've never heard of salmon being caught accidently whilst barbel fishing.
It may well happen, what I do know is that down at Christchurch as recently as this season, barbel were caught out of season by salmon fishermen, weighed photographed and boasted about!