The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

A lovely Barbel Leigh, looks pristeen.

I love fishing the severn, Hampton Loade has long been on my list of places to fish.

A lovely fish Leigh, well done.

Super, well done Leigh....

Nice one mate,

One day I'll get one too.

Gaz

Well done

Nice barbel

Its always hard to get that first Barbel of any size

I well remember my first barbel, caught on the R. Kennet at Newbury on the Civil Service Angling stretch in the 1960s. I must have been about 16 and I went for the day with my Mum & Dad. Never fished a fast river before, so I gave up with float fishing pretty quickly as the float kept getting caught in streamer weed. I was beginning to lose interest, so thought I’d try legering with a bit of spam. Shortly after, my rod (which was a tubular steel affair) whipped round and I found myself hanging onto some sort of an express train. Shouting at Mum and Dad for help, I eventually landed an gigantic barbel which lay across the top of my far too small landing net. I managed to get it in head first, with the tail and most of the body sticking out the top of the net. On weighing, it thumped my 7.5lb max scales down to the bottom with a bump,so my guess was at around 10lb. I remember it had the most enormous eyes. On sliding it back, I was so excited that I gave up fishing for the rest of the day as I felt I was never going to top that, and indeed, barbel-wise, I never did...

That's a veritable monster for the 60s. Have you fished for them much in the intervening years?

Yes, mainly at Fishers Green on the River Lea in the 70s and 80s. Some success, but much smaller - 2-3lbs. Still the same fighting drive but on a smaller scale. I know that far larger barbel come out of there now, but the smaller ones which were easier to catch, seem to have disappeared for a variety of reasons, mainly lack of flow silting up the gravel spawning beds. I understand that Lee Valley Park, the EA and various other bodies are working on improving this. But, to date the one from the Kennet remains my largest fish and forever in my memory.