Angling strategies for barbel have changed since the nineteenth century, when according to old literature, Thames anglers ordered their man to bait a swim with thousands of lobworms over the course of a week, and then took to a punt to reap the rewards (probably hundreds of bootlace eels). Few modern day barbel anglers could afford to employ a man for such tasks, though I suppose the more adaptable among us could press the wife into service. I tried, and got a bloody nose for my trouble.

Of course, mass baiting still has relevance in modern barbel angling, though nowadays maggots, casters or pellets are likely to be the weapon of choice. It is probably a fair generalisation to say a maggot/caster attack is most effective on a river running at low or normal level. A few years ago, I enjoyed some fascinating fishing during a period of oppressive August heat which saw the River Swale down to its bare bones.

I headed for the lower reaches of the river, carrying a selection of baits and tackle, with no particular target species in mind. There was a nice swim between two willows, where a leafy canopy offered respite from the sun and the flow was broken by submerged boughs and roots, leaving an eddy of gentle, spiralling currents. The margin consisted of a clay wall that fell steeply into the tawny depths, with one or two dangerous looking roots that protruded at oblique angles.

A couple of decent perch had shown briefly, and in the hope of rousing them I began dropping maggots into the edge, half a dozen at a time. Minnows and fry crowded round as the grubs rolled down the slope. After ten minutes I began sensing occasional movements deep down, right on the edge of vision. At first I wondered if it was an illusion, a trick of the light, but a stronger sign followed in the form of a momentary golden gleam in the opaque depths. Before long two or three barbel were nosing up the slope, gobbling furiously around the base of the roots before sweeping away, only to repeat the process a minute or two later. Incidentally, I was only carrying half a pint of maggots that day, which goes to show you don’t need a gallon when the fish are in the mood.

In such a snaggy swim, I was faced with a dilemma. Strong tackle would obviously be necessary to hold barbel from the roots and branches, but would this compromise my presentation to the extent that hook baits would not be picked-up in the first place? As it happened I was somewhat undergunned anyway, since the most robust gear I had available comprised a medium feeder rod and 8lb nylon. A fixed link carrying a couple of swan shot was incorporated and the hook, a number 8 Super Specialist, was baited with a couple of maggots. It was crude, to say the least, but to fish fine would have been futile.

The early signs were not encouraging. A good fish of around 8lb approached the bait and made rapid sucking movements from a range of an inch or two. Then it turned and fled, seemingly unsettled by the obvious difference between the behaviour of the hook bait and the free offerings. However, within minutes the same barbel returned, and this time the double maggot offering was blotted out by a whiskered snout. I struck before the fish could change its mind and hung on as the rod locked into a dangerous hoop and creaked ominously.

To cut a long story short, I hooked six barbel that day but landed only two of them. The tackle was simply not up to the job, but at least I had proved to my own satisfaction that finesse was not important where barbel were concerned – in this instance at least, they would accept a small bait on a big hook and strong line.

Crude
Three years later, during another spell of sweltering August sunshine, I had a chance to take my crude presentation experiment a stage further. I was back on the Swale, albeit further downstream, and chose to fish a swift flowing, shallow glide among willows. From a pitch hemmed around by stinging nettles and Himalayan balsam, I could distinguish the river bed easily over a large area of the swim. It was like looking into an aquarium. A shoal of fair sized roach hung in the shade of a far bank willow and nearby, a jack pike loitered with intent. On one occasion a much larger pike of around 20lb drifted menacingly through the swim. A solitary barbel slid beneath a substantial willow immediately upstream of my fishing position, and I had no doubt that there would be others nearby. Surprisingly, however, I saw no chub.

I caught a modest barbel of about 4lb, but with further action slow to materialize I eventually moved elsewhere and did not return until evening. By then the skies had become overcast, but the heat and humidity remained intense. The casters introduced earlier in the day must have worked their magic, because within minutes of lowering the bait dropper half a dozen barbel appeared from nowhere, competing vigorously and sending a haze of disturbed sediment sweeping down the flow. As the evening progressed, I noticed that a couple of eels and a solitary large perch had joined the scrimmage.

This time I was equipped with an old, 2lb test curve carp rod that had been adapted to take an over fitting quivertip. I felt sure it could handle the abuse it was about to be given and if not, well, its destruction would be no great loss. It was coupled with a trusty Mitchell 300 loaded with 15lb Berkley Big Game. At the business end was a number 8 Ashima C-310 carp hook, and a couple of swan shot were nipped direct to the line. Two casters were impaled and the bait was lowered into position.

Occasional plucks registered on the quivertip. It was impossible to know if they were just line bites, or if the presentation was too crude, resulting in aborted takes. I need not have worried, for before long the rod lurched to a classic barbel bite. I pulled out of that first fish but landed the second, another 4-pounder, which was far from the biggest in the swim. Activity diminished for a while following the disturbance, but a little more work with the bait dropper eventually drew the barbel back. Another of 6lb 4oz was added to the tally, along with an eel, before it was time for home.

Full potential
The full potential of the swim had not been realised, so I was back the following day for more. It took an hour of steady feeding before, quite out of the blue, the rod hooped round. Unfortunately, the hook opened as I tried to stop the fish during that first, irresistible drive for the willows. I had no hesitation in scaling up to a number 6 hook in the same pattern; it was brutal, but necessary.

I do not subscribe to the theory that barbel fight harder in some rivers than others, but those Swale fish really do take some holding. The problem is, that they are almost invariably hooked close to willows, which gives the angler no leeway; you either stop them in their tracks, or you lose them. That said, there is a subtle art to playing fish, even when hit-and-hold tactics are employed. To lock up and not yield an inch can put so much strain on the tackle that more often than not, a weak point will be exposed. It sometimes pays to give a turn or two of line at the critical stage of the struggle, but it is a difficult judgement to make, with no margin for error.

That was how I handled the next hooked barbel. For some moments it was touch and go, with several heavy swirls among the willow fronds hinting at a sizeable fish. I instinctively clamped a hand onto the rod above the reel, only for the line to cut like cheese wire into my index finger. Throughout this make-or-break stage of the fight the top section of the old carp rod remained perfectly straight, albeit at right angles to the butt. Eventually the pressure eased, just a fraction, but from that moment the odds swung in my favour. The fish was no monster, just a decent Swale barbel of 8lb 8oz, but it tested my beefed-up tackle to the absolute limit.

It was the same story with three further barbel that came my way that day. There was invariably a lull of an hour or more following each capture, but the regular introduction of casters through the bait dropper eventually drew the fish back. The biggest disappointment came when I struck another savage bite, only for a large perch to surface in a flurry and throw the hook. I suspect it was the same fish observed in the swim the previous evening.

New turn on the Trent
Recently, my approach to barbel fishing has taken a new turn, and it all began on my first ever trip to the tidal River Trent in September 2002. Friend Martin Lofthouse and I spent most of the day fishing from a sandbank on the inside of a sweeping bend for no reward, but I noticed an angler a few hundred yards downstream catch a couple of small barbel. When he departed, I decided to move into his swim for the last couple of hours.

One of my Porky Pig rods was rigged with a heavy, home made in-line swimfeeder of the type I use for tench and bream fishing. It was filled with sweetcorn and plugged with mashed, scalded trout pellet. A six-inch long hook length terminated with a number 10 Traditional Wet Fly hook and a hair-rigged double sweetcorn hookbait.

I would have returned home more than happy with the barbel of 6lb 8oz and 5lb 6oz that came my way that evening, but a third bite followed. Several glimpses during a powerful struggle suggested that this fish could be the pick of the bunch, though I had little inkling of its true size until Martin, having netted the barbel a few yards downstream, looked into the meshes and exclaimed: “It’s got to be a double.” I sloshed through the margins to take a look. Having been brought up on the Yorkshire rivers, where genuine doubles are still rare, this fish took my breath away. It weighed 12lb 1oz.

My approach to Trent barbel fishing evolved from there. I have no idea how much feed the previous angler introduced, but for my own part, nothing went in apart from what was carried in the feeder. My first session on the tidal river left me with the impression that there was little point creating a bed of feed because of the huge commercial barges that ply the watercourse. Loaded to the gunnels with sand, they almost dredge the bottom as they travel downstream, as a result of which a tight carpet of particles is likely to end up spread over half a mile.

Big and smelly
A big feeder full of smelly attraction seemed the obvious way round the problem. I no longer use the in-line models, but still prefer a home made version. Most commercially produced feeders lack the capacity I require and tend to disintegrate after a period of use. With a length of 3cm diameter clear plastic tubing (sold in tackle shops for pole top sections), a roll of roofing lead from a builders’ supplier and a tube of Araldite, it is possible to produce big, robust feeders that are ideal for the job. I have not found it necessary to camouflage them with paint, though it could be an advantage on pressured rivers.

The feeder is locked on the line with a swivel, a buffer bead and a Drennan Centre Stop. A 12-inch hook length terminating in a hair-rigged bait completes the set up. It is crude, admittedly, but more importantly it is both safe (the feeder will slide free in the event of a breakage) and effective. Halibut pellet is my usual first choice bait, while the feeder is filled with one of the fishmeal-based groundbaits from the Dynamite range, such as Marine Pellet, with a generous dose of corn steep liquor added. The aim is to create a strong scent trail leading to a solitary edible item, which is of course the hook bait; it is as far removed as possible from the mass baiting approach.

The big feeder tactic seems to come into its own during the autumn months. It has given me plenty of action on the Trent and has also worked well on my local rivers. Success breeds confidence and I was bubbling over with it on the River Wharfe and the Yorkshire Ouse last year. It was not so much a question of whether I would catch barbel, but how many and how big.

No doubt there are times and places where a subtle approach is required, but my own experiences of barbel fishing indicate that finesse is a minor consideration!

This article was originally published in Coarse Angling Today