Words and pictures by Pat Gillett. 

Geoff Dace relaxing in his swim

Over the years I have had some good days fishing as a guest on Barbel Catchers Club ‘fish-ins’, so when my good mate Geoff Dace asked me if I would like to be a guest on a ‘fish-in’ on the river Wye, I jumped at the chance.

 

 

The ‘fish-in’ was to take place on Friday 22^nd July, with the Midlands Region of the B.C.C. booking a stretch for the day.

Having never fished the Wye for Barbel before I did a bit of searching to see what information I could find, and it soon became apparent that the Wye seemed pretty much the same as the Middle Severn that I used to fish about 15 years ago. There are large shoals of barbel in certain swims with the rest of the stretch holding the odd one in most swims. With this in mind swim selection would be key to having a good day.

We arrived at the venue at about 1.30pm, there were already a couple of the members there and one of them was just returning a barbel, so the fish were obviously feeding. A quick walk of the stretch and I soon found what I was looking for, a swim that to me, absolutely ‘screamed’ barbel. This was on the inside of a bend and about 120 yards above a shallow ford that went across the river. There were banks of streamer weed to about 30 yards out and then a clean gravel bottom, which proved to be around 3 to 4 feet deep. From my time fishing the Middle Severn this looked a perfect area for holding a large shoal of barbel at this time of year. continue reading…

Question:

Hi Shaun,

I fish a small river in Berkshire which holds some very big Chub and Barbel.

Earlier this year I brought several kgs of rahja spice 10mm to feed and some 14mm as hookbaits, I also purchased a few pots of you paste and dip.

The question is Shaun, what is the best way to approach barbel with this type of bait?

I have per-baited a couple of kilos in three swims, should i be using pellet as well?

One thing I have noticed is the paste is a bit dry, how can i make it a bit more tacky, I think the chub love and just pulling it off how ever i mount it.

Cheers

Steve

Answer:

I prefer to mix the sizes of feed

Hi Steve,

Good timing this one really as it is something I have been doing and got terribly wrong at the start of the season which shows we should never take fish or our methods for granted. I had found some Chub and Barbel I could watch during a dog walk in the close season and they became a little bit of a fascination for me. I started feeding them Rahja Spice and Ghurkka Spice boilies in mixed sizes 10′s, 15′s and 20mm. They got stuck into the 20mm’s as much as they did the other sizes and it made it easier for me to see how much they were eating. The 10mm’s were more difficult to spot on the bottom in the wavering current. continue reading…

Words and pictures by Pat Gillett:

It’s been a strange start to the river season with it becoming apparent (that as I write this piece on the 4/7/11), the barbel are still in spawning mode. I personally think this is down to the unusually cold May that we had. This has lead to everything happening a lot later than normal.

Up to yet I have managed to get out for 4 afternoon / evening sessions. The first of these was on the first weekend of the new season to a stretch on the Upper Trent. The stretch was so overgrown that we had to make a path way to the river before we could even sort out somewhere to fish! I just hope it stays like this as it means we will have the stretch to ourselves. Anyway the river was very low and clear and we spent 7 hours without so much as a knock off anything. Looking back from what I have seen whilst fishing the Dove recently, I am not surprised as the swims we were fishing would not be looked upon as ‘spawning grounds’ and so probably contained very few fish at that time.

The following Friday we were off to the River Dove. A quick walk along the river and I saw a couple of good barbel ‘flash’. I dropped into this swim and after about an hour the heavens opened and never stopped for the rest of the evening. I spent the first couple of hours fishing pellet hook baits over the Quest mini pellet mix without having so much as a wrap. I could still see the occasional barbel ‘flashing’ in the swim so decided to change the hook baits to see if I could get a reaction. Both hook baits were replaced with special crab freezer baits (been in my fridge from the winter). Twenty minutes later and I was into a heavy fish which found a snag. Just as I was placing the rod on the rest to see if the fish would come out of the snag, my other rod was away. This resulted in a small barbel of about 7lbs. Back to the other rod and I managed to free the snagged fish and after a good scrap where I had to take it easy (not knowing what state my line would be in) a much bigger fish was landed. This was a really long (approx 31 inches) spawned out female of 11lb 14ozs. After a couple of quick 

This one has spawned out - 11lb 14oz - 31" long.

photo’s the fish was allowed to recover in the landing net before being released safely. The rest of the evening produced 2 more small males again to the special crab.

The following Friday and Saturday afternoons I was back fishing the same swim for a couple of after work sessions. Three more smallish barbel up to about 8lbs were the result. All fish coming to the special crab fished in various guises. I didn’t see any bigger fish flashing on these 2 sessions so it could be that the females have done what that had to do and have now moved elsewhere.

I have always been of the opinion that pellet hook baits are more effective than boilies in the warmer weather, but these sessions proved the exact opposite with 7 fish to the boilie and absolutely nothing to the pellet. It maybe just coincidence but my mate that I fish with (fishes mainly pellet) only had 1 chub during these trips and as far as I am aware, mine were the only barbel caught on the stretch at the time. Food for thought perhaps!

Further proof of how late nature is this year came on Saturday (2^nd July) when one of the anglers on the Dove caught a Bream that still had the spawning tubercules on it. This is something that should be happening in May.

The fish should get back to normal soon and the fishing will no doubt improve on the rivers across the country as the fish will again become more widespread and not just be confined to small areas where they are spawning.

Cheers,

Pat Gillett

Nature having repaired itself

In just 10 days time we can once again wet a line on the vast river system of this country. I for one am thankful we still retain a 3 month close season on our rivers to give both the fish a break and chance to spawn in peace as well as for the river banks to get on with repairing them selves and re-growing foliage.

I have been spending a lot of time this last week walking the rivers and have found some lovely surprises swimming around unmolested in their environment. The river systems of this country are some of the few places it is possible to find your own little bit of heaven. With so many anglers seemingly losing interest in flowing water in favour of what are in many cases heavily stocked still waters our rivers are starting to be neglected when it comes down to angling pressure. Yes, I know some stretches are flogged to death but for the angler prepared to do a little exploratory work then it doesn’t take too long to find decent angling possibilities away from the maddening crowd.

Whilst we have been so starved of rain I have been able to view swims and fish much easier than I have known before and have been feeding a few chub and barbel this last week. The information gained from being able to see into the swim will prove so highly valuable later in the season when the colour and floods return. I have found a few bits I had been unaware of before which absolutely scream out for a bait to be lowered

Baits and location established

in when the river is in flood.

With a little wet weather forecast this week and next, its possibly been my last chance of seeing the river in its water short skeletal state.

I now know both the Chub and the barbel are loving the Ghurkka Spice and Rahja Spice I have been feeding them so no worries about my bait or location when the season starts. All I need worry about now is not spooking them and presenting the hook bait in a manner they will accept.

My none fishing time has been put to great use and I have discovered more this last week about a new stretch I am going to fish than I would over a long period whilst actually fishing. If you haven’t checked out your usual spots whilst the river is low I urge you to go and look. You may just surprise yourself what a productive exercise it could be.

Best fishes

Shaun

With one thing and another I have not been able to get out as much as I would have liked so far this season, as I write this (14/7/10) I have only managed four short afternoon / evening trips to the River Dove.

The first two trips were to a stretch of the river I had never fished before. The first afternoon I fished an absolutely classic looking swim with two far bank bushes which were on the outside of a bend (meaning that the main area of flow would be pushing underneath these bushes, giving more oxygen in the water in that area

11lb 3oz – a good first trip

and also pushing any food items along with it), this was also the deepest area of the swim. We started fishing at about 4.30pm on what was a really hot day with my mate fishing about 300 yards below me.

At around 6pm the rod fished to the upstream bush gave a ‘delicate’ 3 feet twitch! , and I was attached to my first barbel of the new season. It turned out to be a nicely conditioned fish of 11lb 3oz. As I was just about to weigh my fish, my mobile rang with my mate informing me that he had just caught a barbel of 11lb 10oz. Two 11’s at exactly the same time, can’t be bad! This proved to be a very short feeding spell has the only other bite either of us had came from a very spawned out chub of 5lb 2oz that I had at about 8pm. We packed up at 11pm. All in all, a good first trip.

Next trip was a total blank. I fished another swim on the same stretch without any bites or fish movement whatsoever. My mate also blanked.

The third and fourth trips were to a stretch about a mile downstream. The third trip was again uneventful, but the fourth trip produced a really long hard fighting barbel of 11lb 12oz. This fish snagged me up solid under a tree for several minutes, but after trying various things (slack line worked) she eventually came out and then proceeded to fight like a demon all the way to the net. This is where it is imperative to use a line with a good abrasion resistance and once again the Pro-Tough had performed well. Just to prove how short the feeding

11lb 12oz – ‘fought like a demon’

spells have become, just as I was weighing my fish the mobile rang again with my mate informing me he was just weighing a 11lb 6oz barbel. These fish were both caught at about 10.50pm shortly before packing up.

The fish have now reverted to type (on a low crystal clear river) with little being caught before dusk. Therefore you need to keep any swim disturbance to a minimum from say 9pm onwards so that you maximise your chances of a bite during what can be a very short feeding spell.

The fish that I have caught have fallen to a feeder fished pellet, with the pellet wrapped in either Quest barbel chop paste or Special Crab paste. The feeder being filled with Quest Baits mini mixed pellets.

The main thing I have noticed different about the river this year is the vast amount of streamer weed that is in the water. It is the most I have ever seen, and from what I have been told the Upper Trent is exactly the same. I would have thought that this would have been exactly the opposite after such a long hard winter. Anyone got any theories on this one?

So there we are, 4 short sessions, not many fish caught, but those that were caught were of a good average. That’s really what my fishing is all about these days, ‘Quality over quantity every time’. Although I have no interest in chasing big ‘named’ fish, as long as I am catching good sized fish in fairly quiet surroundings then I am more than happy.

Cheers,
Pat Gillett

I decided to put this piece together after reading the blog piece where Graham was catching chub on the new ‘chubby chops’ but was also missing plenty of bites. Graham was fishing the baits on a short hair.

One of many winter doubles that has fell to the boilie / bait band combination

The situation above closely mirrors that of one that I found myself in many winters ago whilst fishing on the Lower Severn below Worcester. I was fishing trimmed down boilies on a short hair and was getting lots of sharp pulls on the rod tip but only caught one barbel in the 8 hour session.

Now obviously there were plenty of barbel in the swim but the rig I was using wasn’t effective enough to catch them. The water was cold (around 6ºc) and because of this I was sure the barbel were not feeding properly but were merely picking the bait up in their lips without getting pricked by the hook (because of the hair being used).

Now I had caught a lot of good barbel through the Autumn on banded pellets.  This got me thinking of using the bands for the boilies as well, so that the bait was right next to the hook. This would mean that hopefully the barbel would not be able to mouth the bait without getting pricked by the hook. continue reading…