Landing net sizes for barbel???

[108831]

The club i've re-joined last February have just sent me an email stating that if you fish for specimen barbel you must use a 42" landing net, these morons must have caught covid,or the moron attitude that seems to come with it,I have caught many decent barbel,best 18lbs,i've never owned a landing net over 26",never had any problem,day,or night,they are also suggesting taking an unhooking cradle down the river,ffs,anyone who does the miles on the Ouse,blanks far more than catches,really appreciates stupid ideas like that,have these people ever fished for big barbel???

 

[ian g]

The club i've re-joined last February have just sent me an email stating that if you fish for specimen barbel you must use a 42" landing net, these morons must have caught covid,or the moron attitude that seems to come with it,I have caught many decent barbel,best 18lbs,i've never owned a landing net over 26",never had any problem,day,or night,they are also suggesting taking an unhooking cradle down the river,ffs,anyone who does the miles on the Ouse,blanks far more than catches,really appreciates stupid ideas like that,have these people ever fished for big barbel???

Sounds like carp orientated rule to me , we had something similar in a club I was in . I never use anything bigger

 

[Keith M]

It sounds like a rule that Anglers who have never fished for barbel have instigated; or if they have tried catching barbel they have never caught any.

Yes a largeish landing net is required, but a 42in landing net is way over the top and can even be detrimental to a barbel.

Toss*rs.

I haven't looked at my emails but if it's the same club then they ought to get some decent sized landing nets and unhooking mats (that they insist that you use instead of your own, and which are wafer thin and too small) at their two match venues which both have double figure carp in them; before they start to impose silly rules like this.

Keith

 

[tigger]

Imo a 20 inch net is ok, a 24inch net is ample!

Silly pratts coming up with ideas like that are just silly pratts.

At the end of the day you arn't fishing for barbel, any specimen barbel that come along are just a bycatch ??.

 

[steve2]

Most rules these days are based around god carp. One of my clubs also as similar rules for pike fishing which I ignore. It seems that they assume everyone these days camps out in a bivvy. Have they ever tried walking the banks of a lake or river dragging a 42" net.
My 36" round net actually is bigger than a 42" triangle net. When lure fishing I use a 30" net that as taken pike of 26lb.

 

[Aknib]

You could always look for the grooves in the gravel runs where the silly beggars have tried to hold their 42" landing nets in a strong current and got dragged down the river, the heels of their wellies digging in defiantly, they'd make good spots to place a bait

42" landing nets for specimen Barbel?

Utter nonsense and a rule derived by people who probably have little experience in catching and handling such fish, imo, you'd have to drag the fish over three foot of mesh in a current before it even reached the lip of the net.

Tossers, they ought to get a life and they'd probably spend less time inventing stupid rules!

 

[rayner]

42" what a rediculous rule. I see such nets on aters that only old carp to 8lbs by soft folk with alarms on rods.
Barbel being a long fish needs a little bigger netbut 42" is big enough to trap a tiger

 

[john step]

I cannot honestly say without going outside to measure them, how big my barbel nets are . However they aint 42 inches. They are roundish/oval and are bigger than normal nets. I prefer round nets. The trouble is that although they are big they wouldnt measure 42 inches across and would fall foul to the twit rules that some places impose despite probably being big enough for the largest carp should I wish to use them for that purpose.

A rule made by some numb nuts in your club I guess.

 

[steve2]

Didn't Richard Walker homemade net measure 36" and that easily coped with 44lb carp. Just seems that over size nets and over powered rods are now the vogue. At least they haven!t yet said the carp cradles must also be used.

 

[Keith M]

Imo a 20 inch net is ok, a 24inch net is ample!

I usually use a 24inch circular and fairly deep net for barbelling and never have any difficulties in landing and resting big Barbel in it.
I also have a 32inch triangular net that I occasionally use when Im fishing for Barbel at night, and although it’s fine for landing big Barbel if anything it is less capacious than my circular 24inch net because of its triangular shape.
In Barry Rickards and Ray Webb’s book on Fishing for big Pike; Barry had a diagram showing one of his Pike nets which was made out of the rim of a bicycle wheel, it was being compared to a large triangular shaped net, and it showed quite clearly why a smaller circular net is much more capacious than a larger triangular net.

I have several landing nets from a very small pan net of just 12” wide for small silvers (which I’ve never used), two more conventional sized pan nets of around 18” (one with a deeper soft mesh and the other with a shallower shake-n-dry mesh), two larger circular and deeper specimen nets of 24” and 32” (the latter of which folds and clips on to my waistcoat when I’m roving) and a third Specimen net of 32” which is triangular, a circular rubberised mesh Pike net of 36” (which can easily handle large Pike) and a triangular shaped 44inch deep meshed Carp net, so it’s not because I don’t own any large landing nets but being told to use a 42” landing net when I’m fishing for Barbel is way out of order.

(NB: Even the Korum barbel spoon net comes in 26”/30” which is nowhere near 42”)

Keith

 

[john step]

Exactly Keith. The late JW also said that in one of his videos.

 

[steve2]

I have seen someone with a 60" landing net on one of our lakes. I assume it is for the monster catfish that we don't have in our waters.
How he managed to use it on his own I don't know even a 42" net is a handful on your own.

 

[tigger]

Bang on Keith, I much prefer a round net head but I haven't seen any decent ones in ages.
Even oval ones which I have arn't as good as the round ones.
I think there used to be a Wilson net head available from masterline years ago and it was a belter.

 

[Philip]

I have quite a few nets and I am forever umm-ing and arrrh-ing over which to take. Ideally I like to take as small a net as possible for transport and net maneuverability reasons but the problem is on the rivers for example I am often faced with catching fish that can be anything from Roach to large Carp or Catfish size so I end up using quite large nets to cover any eventuality.

Saying that I got a korum fold up spoon net a while back, the largest one which i think is 30 inches.it strikes me as a good compromise size and ideal for Barbel up to any size. Nice and deep so you can rest fish and mesh holes big enough so it does not get dragged too badly out of position by a current. You do need to take care lifting larger fish so as not to break the frame.

A couple of gripes in general about nets ;

I wish more manufacturers would make holes in their spreader blocks so you can tuck the net mesh into it so that its out of the way of any undergrowth or obstructions when shipping out but pulls free when you net the fish.

I also wish manufacturers would make spreader blocks with a notch cut out of them to allow you to hang a pair of scales on them so you can use them and the landing net handle as a weighing staff and crook for larger fish.

 

[Jeltz]

42” nets are not safe for use in flowing rivers, you are at risk of being towed away in a fast current. I doubt if they are even suitable for carp fishing on still waters unless you are built like the hulk.

From experience I would say a 26” net is ok for barbel as long as it is deep enough. Not perfect but much more suitable than a 42” net which is more useful for covering tanks so they can’t be seen from the air.