Food for thought

The last time I spoke to Barrie about 2 years ago, he actually admitted that he did not possess a computer and did not really appreciate the comments that are made on this website regarding his articles.

This is a pity.

I would love him to contribute to our forum occasionally.

In his last two articles Barrie virtually echos my own thoughts on many aspects of angling. His thoughts on barbless v barbed hooks are spot on. Personally I hardly ever use barbless hooks unless it's a fishery rule.

Barrie certainly agrees with my comments about playing big fish which I wrote about many months ago. Yet I still see anglers poncing about when playing big fish. I saw a young angler the other day playing a big fish on the weir in the centre of Rotherham. The fish was obviously a decent barbel, about 6 lbs I would guess.

And yes there he was holding the rod with his left hand poised up the rod and the blinking reel backwinding like billio!!

He played that fish for over 20 minutes (by my watch) and then lost in in the Tesco trollies that abound near that weir.

If it had been me, I'd have had it out in 3 minutes at the most!!

What also surprised me was that neither he, who hooked the fish, nor his mate, had a proper landing net. Just a little tea strainer that would have struggled with a 2lb chub!

Ron we all live and learn mate.

Dave, what was fascinating was that both of these guys had rod pods!

And Shimano reels!

And neither were all that young. Late teens I guess.

Whilst I agree with most ofwhat you say Barry I disagree stronly on the hand upthe rod techniqe for playing fish. It sounds like the sort of comment i would expect to hear from the barbelpolice. i hopeyou are not goimng to go allPC after all these years !!!

I use the technique often and it is very useful to play fish when they are near the net, to extract them from weed or when i am Roach or Bream fishing at distance as the fish tend to "glide" when first hooked.

The technique makes it far easier to judge how much pressure you are applying. This can be critical when using light lines and small hooks for relatively large fish e.g a double figure tench on a 16 to 4.6 mono or a big roach on a 20 to 3.3 mono.

My clutch is also unlikely to scream as I tend to play fish off backwind.

Like the comments on Marco Piere White. He used to fish the Hotel stretch in Marlow and caused havoc with the lockkeeper. He'd walk across the wier top and climb the gantry and walk along spinning off it. The old lockkeeper would be on the phone to the hotel with various expletives.

We haven't seen him for a couple of years now. Wonder why???

Ron, I speak to Barrie most weeks and he's actually very appreciative of most of the comments on this website. He still doesn't have regular access to a computer but does 'tune in' when he can to have a look at what's been said. He can't be upset with us or he wouldn't write for us every month would he.

And he's not one to take unbrage at being disagreed with, after all, when you've been lecturing at Cambridge for as long as Barrie has he must have been disagreed with more times than we've all had hot dinners!

Considering he's only just thrown his pen and ink away for a fountain pen we can't expect him to get too technical and buy a computer just yet! And anyway, his secretary has only just got used to his doctor's prescription handwriting, so it would be a shame to disappoint her and get him on a keyboard.

Joking apart, he did tell me only this week that he would be taking a look on the forum more often.

i've got to agree with most of the things that barry says, except in the hand up the rod, if the clutch is set properly then the fish will take line when it reaches close to the breaking point.
anymore pressure and the line would break so you dont need the hand on the reel unless you are retrieving line.
The method of placing your hand up the rod gives you a little more control and judgment of the pressure applied when you need to apply the maximum pressure on a large fish such as a large pike to guide it away from dangerous places such as snags.

I don't agree with Barrie about the hand up the rod thing either. Sometimes, when you're playing a hard-fighting fish it starts to make your arm ache a bit and using your other hand on the rod eases it and gives you some respite before carrying on with the fight in conventional manner.

There are obviously a few things we must agree to disagree on here. We have been down this road some time ago.

Personally I know what works for me and I have played a few big fish in my time.

Anyway Graham we are getting a bit old and maybe you might be right.

If I am using light tackle, under 4lb, I do tend to backwind. I do have a pretty strong right arm however. I beat a youngster with huge muscles at arm wrestling some time ago. I think it must be because of all the fly fishing.

Seriously it's nice to know that Barrie is still contributing to angling thought. He is one of the greats who influenced modern angling in more ways than many imagine.

so what your saying ron is you've got a big right arm from fiddling with flies, i think we're all enlightened now.

I remember an article in the old Angling magazine by ( I think )Dave Steuart about the hand up the rod thing. I am sure he was talking about salmon fishing on the Avon and had loads of theories about leverage and fulcrums. If anybody is interested enough I will look through my old copies and find the article. It dates from sometime in the mid 70`s.

Surely with the hand up the rod, it's a personal thing and depends also on the action of the rod. There are times when I've had my hand a bit further up the rod and never gave it much thought. I remember seeing some French carp rods once with a further handle up the rod and they looked out of place.

both my pike rods have got sliding padded handles further up the blank

I agree entirely with your comments on playing fisf Ron. Last close season on the Wear I came across a guy fishing for barbel. When I arrived at the swimm he already had a fish on, playing it on very light tackle. He did land it eventually, in a net as you describe as a tea strainer. When I advised him that he should not be fishing for barbel in the first place, and that his tackle was totally inadequite his reply was, what the f**k has it to do with you.
Telephoned the EA who were out within the half hour, not only was he done for fishing for barbel out of season and using prohibited baits, he was also done for not having a licence.
Sadly the next day there were two dead barbel close to the swim.

Whilst some experienced anglers can land big fish safely on light tackle,(Steff Horrocks with his chub) many anglers reading these aricles think it to be the accepted practice, which should not be the case.

I think, and it is only a theory that because people can now go from non angler to Carp, Barbel, Tench, Pike expert overnight gearwise means they have no idea how to play fish.It is a learning curve but the best way to learn is by playing and landing moderate sized fish whilst float fishing.For example Gudgeon bashing and hooking a decent Perch on light gear was my introduction along with 'pound' Roach from the local canal.Clutches were no good at all, backwinding was the only way.This stayed with me for some years until decent clutches came along.Now even when fishing light lines I find clutches smooth enough to play fish off them.As for holding the rod up from the handle with big fish I tend to take the pressure off my elbow/forearm by placing my fingertips on the blank and applying firm pressure.This also applies to weeded fish.