Hi mate,Tengisgol wrote:I have fished for barbel that have never been caught before and, in my experience, they can behave very differently to fish that are regularly fished for. For example, my experience on the Lea in the eighties and nineties was that the barbel could be very neurotic and not so easy to tempt during the daytime. They would very much stay tucked into snags and 'only came out at night'. Of course it was different in coloured water. When you had a bite the fish had hooked itself and slammed the rod round in the dark.
However, when we started exploring the Wye, we came across groups of fish that had populated areas that had simply never been fished. It could take a long time to get them to take our fishing baits because they'd just not seen it before. We found sweetcorn very good; visual, tasty and easy to fire out. I recall one group of fish, it took days of baiting (not huge amounts but regular) before they started to pick up. When we did fish for them the bites weren't savage at all. Nice steady little pulls because they just weren't scared. They didn't know what was going to happen when they felt that draw on the line. So we rarely (never?) in those days had the 'three foot twitch'. We always touch legered, pointing the rod down the line and you could feel everything! If you find a group, don't hammer them. Take one or two fish only and then leave it. Hammer a shoal and they will soon flee or become neurotic like everywhere else. If you have the fishing to yourself, taking just the odd fish here or there and you will have glorious fishing for a long time. Plus the opportunity to learn about and observe barbel as they would like to behave naturally.
There was a big debate not much later on between John Bailey and Tony Miles about barbel bites. TM disputed JB saying about these little pulls and tugs, claiming that with barbel you should only get that massive pull round (that's how I recall the 'debate' anyhow). But they were both right in fact. You would get neurotic barbel behaving like that but also, where they were virgin fish, they could behave just like JB was describing.
I have photos here of those days fishing new stretches of river with new populations of barbel. They were fish that showed themselves regularly basking in the upper layers of the water with no fear. Rolling over each other, almost playing on the surface like dolphins. Then with a hatch of flies they would be taking them just subsurface or off the top just like trout. I have a photo of a barbel with its nose out of the water taking a mayfly. I am sorting out my slides at the moment and scanning them in - haven't found these yet but I will!
My advice would be location is everything. Put on some good walking boots, nettle proof trousers and Polaroids. Get out on warm May days and look for clear gravel areas next to weed with a nice push of water through. Take a catapult and some corn, pellets and hemp. Put out pockets of bait as you go along and rewalk the areas you've baited to check to see what may have moved over it during a period of a couple of hours.
When you come to fish, touch leger and don't just wait for a three foot twitch (it may happen, not saying it won't) but a barbel bite is more likely to be a nice strong jab/pull through your fingers (if they are virgin fish). Whether you can see the bottom or not, you need to be very mobile and cover a lot of water.
How exciting!
You've just hit the nail on the head as I've now fished the Lea system for about 28 years and have also experienced everything thing you've just mentioned regarding barbel,
However most of my fishing on the Lea has also been touch ledgering but I tend to concentrate more on the very large chub using this tactic as in a lot of cases it's the difference between catching and not
I'm one of those anglers where I can't just sit there all day long expecting a fish to turn up and show its self as a lot of the time this just simply don't happen unless yer name is Jesus
......lolsI'm constantly on the move stalking about looking for fish
This type of fishing as you already obviously know you can't afford to be lazy, you need to find the fish , it's all about location
All the best
Stuart
