Hook size for Barbel

Hello, I have been Barbel fishing on the Teme and Wye and have not had much luck. I can't get a bite on anything bigger than a size14 hookand even then Im catching mainly small chub and eels. Can any of you give me any advice as to hook size, hook lengths, bait etc? I would really appreciate any help.
Belsh

It depends entirely on the bait and method being used. The condition of the river concerned will also have a huge bearing. Low clear rivers will require much more finesse than a well coloured one.

For maggot fishing I'll use sizes 10-18s.
For pellets (12mm usually) I'll use 8-12s.
Meat and boilies are likely to see me using 6-12s.

When specifically targeting barbel I'll rarely use lower that 5lb hooklengths and that low is likely to be when floatfishing. I'd rather use greater though, there's little point in hooking fish that you can't actually extract.
When legering it's likely to be no less than 8lb hooklengths. The length of legering hooklinks can be anything from 6" to 4' or so. I'd tend to use longer hooklinks in clear river conditions.

Thanks Sam, really appreciate the advice.
And thanks too to anyone who voted in the poll, that is quite revealing.

Belsh, I really can't see how you can learn anything from your poll. I ticked size 12 because it's the stated size that I use most often but that's a size 12 wide gape carp hook when using pellets and boilies (10-12mm) and a Kamasan size 12 hook for double or treble maggot.

Though if I was fishing the Wye at the moment I'd probably use a size 10, 12 or 14 Kamasan hook and a 8mm pellet. As for the Teme, in all likelihood I'd still be using a 10mm pellet or boilie, so still a size 12 carp hook.

On the Wye I'd use a small open ended feeder (30g Drennan Gripmesh), using a pellet based oily groundbait with about 6-10 6mm pellets and recast every 10-15 mins.

As for the Teme, I tend not to feed very much at all, relying on the lure of the bait to get a bite. In a 4-5hr session I might fish half a dozen swim, of which only half will get free offerings and only if I'm confident there are a good few fish present.

TBH I doubt they've spawned yet or have literally just done so and will be congregated around their spawning grounds and should be left alone. They'll probably disperse over the next couple weeks.

to be honest belsh the barbel don't really seem to be feeding in any significant quantaties at the moment they still from all I have told are spawning.
pellets will stop the eel bites in most cases.
my last session was a river carp and eels until I put pellet on only one missed barbel strike in a 6 hrs

Thanks very much mate, I don't feel quite so useless now.

Size 9 for pellet (Raptor D7)

Size 7 for meat. as above

Size 12 for Trotting/maggot feeder

Brilliant mate, thanks.