Missed Barbel Bites

[Alan Whitty]

On the River Wharfe at Newton Kyme there was a shoal of barbel that could often be seen taking ascending pupae in mid water during the summer months. It usually occurred towards evening when the sedges were hatching. You could see them turning sideways on like sharks do to intercept the pupae.

Since retiring to France I have had lots of time to study les barbeaux and learned a lot about them. There is always a shoal of 1st year fish feeding in a shallow run upstream of a bridge that gives a good view of them. They intercept suspended food and also dig the gravel, but they always stay in the same place. In summer they drop downstream to a more sandy stretch and their place is taken by newly hatched fish. As year 2 fish they continually feed by travelling upstream as a loose group until whatever they are searching for is no longer there. Then they turn sideways and drift downstream before resuming their upstream feeding behaviour. I sit on the bank watching these 9" - 12" fish hoovering the sandy bed over and over and over again. In summer thry drop downstream a few hundred metres and join the much larger River Vienne. Their place is taken by the Y1 fish from the gravel shallows, and so on.

The Academy of the Charente gives me a good view of swims 12 foot deep where every stone can be seen. There larger barbel of between 4lb and 6lb travel in small groups of 3 - 6 fish. They arrive in a swim usually from downstream and make a few tentative feeding forays. If they find something they mimic the Y2 barbel in travelling, snouts down, upstrstream until they run out of food and either swim away or drift downstream and have another go. If I have put in some particles they will stay a lot longer.

Every now and then I spot larger barbel travelling on their own. These are usually more unpredictable. They browse the shallows like carp often snuffling under stones and corkscrewing as they pull a caddis or snail off the rocks. They are sometimes in flow and depths that seem odd for barbel to be in. It puzzled me for years until the penny dropped. The shallow areas where they were seen were nearly always upstream of a fish pass or smaller weir or mill race. The main current was elsewhere, but they had found some flow even in these quiet areas.

Once whilst waiting for some vintage cars to pass by I went for a walk along a small fast flowing tributary of the Charente. Just downstream of a small bridge that allowed flow to pass via 2 concrete pipes, a barbel of around 4lb was suspended in the rapid flow that left one of the pipes. Despite the speed of the current itvarely moved a fin to remain static. Every now and then though it moved quickly to intercept something before returning to station, just like a trout would do.

There is a lot more to barbel than you would think.

During last summers heatwave in the better pegs you would have large groups of barbel turning onto their bellies on the surface when you loose fed pellet,and you often had them rise up(in an upright position) and take your banded pellet within a foot of the surface,so somehow they coordinate between their eyes and mouth to take a falling bait without using their barbells to touchy freely find it,I've caught loads like it,possibly hundreds.

 

[@Clive]

During last summers heatwave in the better pegs you would have large groups of barbel turning onto their bellies on the surface when you loose fed pellet,and you often had them rise up(in an upright position) and take your banded pellet within a foot of the surface,so somehow they coordinate between their eyes and mouth to take a falling bait without using their barbells to touchy freely find it,I've caught loads like it,possibly hundreds.

They sometimes take flies off the surface. There are a few places where this becomes a regular feature of their behaviour when the situation arises to make it worth their while.

There are lots of things that don't follow convention with barbel. For example, salmon anglers fishing rivers like the Severn in spring catch large barbel using spinners. The three largest officially recorded barbel in France all fell to lure anglers. In Spain the largest barbel are often caught on lures in the dammed areas of rivers and in the Middle East huge fish of the barbus family, mangars are caught on dead baits again in huge dams.

I don't go along with the adage of barbel turning and bolting away from other barbel when they take a bait. It has sometimes been evidenced by sparrows flying off with a piece of bread to have it all to themselves. But that scenario involves a food item too large to eat immediately. In the barbel situation it would be like a 3lb fish making off with a full tin of Spam. Barbel turn and bolt when they feel the resistance of the line against the lead or feeder, not when they pick up the bait. When you get the three foot twitch the fish is already hooked or has had the bait tightly held in its lips. That is why a float indication is no more savage than that of a chub or bream.

 

[Alan Whitty]

Several of my bites were the float dipping under and popping back up as I struck,barbel was hooked fair and square in the mouth,it would have probably sunk without trace a moment later,but...

Another point about fish 'doing' me,though I find it frustrating and work hard to fathom a solution,it pleases me that they aren't just eating everything and throwing themselves on my line,I had a guy come up Tuesday and said it was like an aquarium(there were just a couple of roach and two barbel in view,what he didn't know I'd been feeding down the inside where these fish were for 5 hours,hadn't seen a fish,if you walked up there and the peg was empty you probably would see nothing,they would all be tucked under the dead foliage on the shaded far bank,it is winter for gods sake,that was where I caught 99% of my fish,location,then feeding are probably the most crucial factors in fishing,accumulated knowledge helps a fair bit...in all walks of life...

 

[Philip]

he three largest officially recorded barbel in France all fell to lure anglers

I was not aware of any official record list in France so I would be interested to hear more about those if you have it Clive.

 

[@Clive]

I was not aware of any official record list in France so I would be interested to hear more about those if you have it Clive.

It used to be on Peche et Poissons website, but it looks like it has been removed and the website modernised. From memory the top weight was 8,3kg, the next two in the 5kg to 6kg range, all caught on shads. The photos suggested they had been caught in a large river that had sea going craft on it. Possibly the Rhone or Seine. The largest was taken over 30 years ago. From the clothing the anglers were wearing I reckon they were caught before the predator season ended at the end of January if there were the same close seasons as now. Unless it is cold in May up in the north east.

All the records other than carp and catfish were under the UK records.

 

[Philip]

It’s a minefield Clive and you will find other lists as well.

From what I have seen web sites and magazines will sometimes try and compile their own “official lists” based on fish they consider to be the record but given as I have seen even magazines giving out prizes to giant “Chub” that were quite clearly grass Carp I don’t hold a lot of faith in most of them.

There is one quite well documented capture of a Barbel from a Seine tributary of “10kg” (dead on weight …big surprise) but try and find photos and things dry up.

I did actually do a little digging some years ago into the possibility of trying to setup a National record list but it would take a lot of organization with the various federations and would need a network of people to validate and a sponsor & I just don’t have the time.

Maybe something for the future !

 

[@Clive]

Yes Philip, there are a few lists. In fact if I took the barbel record weight from one list I have beaten it 3 times. The Peche et Poisson list was long standig. Some records dated back to the 1940s and the rules were that the fish had to be weighed, measured and witnessed. It was regarded as the definitive for proven captures.

You will find accounts of 10kg barbel in the Charente, Vienne, Lot, Tarn and Dordogne rivers too. But absolutely no evidence. Similarly to the exact 10kg you will find reports of barbel measuring exactly 100cm. Again without evidence. I have fished the better parts of the first two rivers for 11 years and had three just over 9lb from three different areas. And never seen one any bigger. I know that 10lb fish are caught in the rivers of the Seine and Rhone systems, but not much more than that.

 

[Philip]

It was regarded as the definitive for proven captures.

Regarded as definitive By who Clive ...The Peche & Possion angling magazine ? ...to be fair some are organized better than others, there was another list, that also appears to have disipeared, that had also made an attempt at trying to at least have a procedure of sorts behind it, come to think of it, it may have been the P&P list you mention but for the most part the lists are poorly done and rarely maintained.

The bottom line is that there is no official French record list setup which is a shame as I think it could be done, there is quite a good structure setup nationwide for the various angling bodies so its feasible..I think anyway.

As for reported captures it does become a joke, there are 10Kg Barbel, 2.5kg Roach, 5kg chub and gigantic fish of all species being caught every year in rivers and lakes up and down the country. Scratch below the surface and as I am sure you know 99.9% have no substance whatsoever.

The 10kg Barbel from the Seine tributary was alledgedly captured during a match so you would hope that it was actually witnessed by a few people and weighed on some scales ! …it was also from a stretch that does throw up some good fish from time to time and one that warrents a little more scruntiny but even with that things are very sketchy and of course …no photo…

There was also a fish from the Essone in the 90s that had a bit more to it but that was between 7&8 kgs from memory....not 10.

There are undoubtably some large fish out there but tracking them down is not so easy...but thats part of the fun isnt it

 

[@Clive]

Regarded as definitive By who Clive ...The Peche & Possion angling magazine ?

Others will claim the same. The bottom line is that there is no official French record list or procedure to claim or validate records setup which is a shame as I think it could be done, there is quite a good structure setup nationwide for the various angling bodies so its feasible..I think anyway.

As for reported captures it does become a joke, there are 10Kg Barbel, 2.5kg Roach, 5kg chub and gigantic fish of all species being caught every year in rivers and lakes up and down the country. Scratch below the surface and as I am sure you know 99.9% have no substance whatsoever.

The 10kg Barbel from the Seine tributary was alledgedly captured during a match so you would hope that it was actually witnessed by a few people and weighed on some scales ! …it was also from a stretch that does throw up some good fish from time to time and one that warrents a little more scruntiny but even with that things are very sketchy and of course …no photo…

There was also a fish from the Essone in the 90s that had a bit more to it but that was between 7&8 kgs from memory....not 10.

There are undoubtably some large fish out there but tracking them down is not so easy...but thats part of the fun isnt it

Tracking them down can be difficult. I asked the question of large barbel on French forum and got nowhere. Very few fish for barbel and as such very few large barbel are landed. The ones that do specialise are usually fishing the Rhone or Seine system. The Marne throws up a few scraper 10lb fish every so often. Put this into perspective; the River Dearne is around 35 miles long and has given at least five different 14lb fish. A friend has had over rwenty different 12lb fish and even I could guarantee several doubles per season. The whole of France cannot match that.

I find that the ceiling in the two rivers that I fish is around 5lb to 7lb for shoal fish. The larger ones are singletons that can be spotted browsing in areas away from where you would expect large barbel to be. The holes and overhanging bushes swims are occupied by large silures. The ones that I have caught over 8lb have all come from deep, narrow channels where the flow is constricted. But I have seen other singletons in what appears to be shallow, slow moving water. The kther thing to note is that all three of my largest barbel fell to sweetcorn or maize.

Regards the PeP record list; if you think back to when the Angling Times was the accepted source of accurately measured captures that won the monthly and annual awards, the PeP of old was in that category. But, not now in either case.

There is supposed to be a cased 10kg barbel in a bar near to Bergerac. No idea whether it is true or a myth.

 

[Philip]

Yes, you cannot compare France to the UK when it comes to the size of the Barbel & you need to catch an awful lot of fish before a double turns up.

Mind you I am not complaining and would not want to swap it back to fishing for Barbel in the UK again with so much pressure on the venues and fish…I like a bit of solitude

 

[flightliner]

I was walking the tiny river Idle many years ago and came across a group of a half dozen BB on a gravel bed.
The leader of the group was actively searching for food while the rest were slowly following behind but seemingly not feeding.
The leading BB found some tasty morsel in the gravel, ate it and then swam to the back of the group where another fish continued searching that did the same as the first one.
It seemed to me that they were intentionally taking turns in allowing each group member to
have an equel share in what food was available.
Never seen it repeated since. My interpretation could be way off but it definately looked that way.

 

[Alan Whitty]

In clear water I cannot tell you how many times I've watched the process of barbel coming up a run where feed is lying until a yard or so past the feed before wheeling back to their shoal mates,never ever more than around 10% of their number being out feeding at once,this behaviour occurs on every clear river I've fished,the behaviour you mention Mick could be for any number of reasons,or even just coincidence,but that seems unlikely...

 

[Keith M]

They sometimes take flies off the surface. There are a few places where this becomes a regular feature of their behaviour when the situation arises to make it worth their while.

I used to regularly fish the river Kennet at night and very,occasionally on a warm still night during the summer we could hear grunting and slurping all along the river where the Barbel were swimming upside down taking insects and/or snail eggs from beneath the floating fronds of streamer weed at the surface and floating insect larvae during a hatch.
It sounded like a pig slaughter house at times and I haven’t heard it elsewhere or since but no doubt it still goes on.

I don't go along with the adage of barbel turning and bolting away from other barbel when they take a bait. It has sometimes been evidenced by sparrows flying off with a piece of bread to have it all to themselves.

No I’ve never witnessed this with Barbel either Clive; however I have witnessed this behaviour several times with shoaling Chub.

Keith

 

[@Clive]

I used to regularly fish the river Kennet at night and very,occasionally on a warm still night during the summer we could hear grunting and slurping all along the river where the Barbel were swimming upside down taking insects and snail eggs from beneath the floating fronds of streamer weed at the surface and floating insect larvae during a hatch.
It sounded like a pig slaughter house at times and I haven’t heard it elsewhere or since but no doubt it still goes on.

Keith

Funnily enough I saw that for myself last spring in Spain. Carp and barbel taking what I presumed to be snails off the underside of water lily leaves. The carp could manage to feed vertically, but the barbel had to turn upside down as you describe.

 

[Philip]

Regarding the way Barbel feed, something I noticed a few years ago while swimming in a rocky river was Barbel would literally swim right up to my feet as I disturbed the bottom. It happened a few times, the barbel would come from downstream right up to my feet feeding in the disturbed bottom. I ended up catching them by wading out and shuffling my feet in the gravel and trotting a float down in the silt cloud, like Gudgeon fishing on a grand scale.

I do wonder if that plays a part in that feeding pattern we see with one fish at the front feeding then drifting to the back of the group. Perhaps the leader fish is disturbing the bottom and the ones behind are following the disturbed cloud its creating & swimming in that sort of V shaped pyramid formation behind the point fish ...the silt cloud spreading out as it washes downstream.

 

[Alan Whitty]

I think at times the 'leader' fish changes and is as Clive mentioned earlier having his first pick at the food...yesterday with bright weather and clear water barbel were noticeable by their absence until mid afternoon and even then only individual visitors,until the sun started falling....

 

[@Clive]

Regarding the way Barbel feed, something I noticed a few years ago while swimming in a rocky river was Barbel would literally swim right up to my feet as I disturbed the bottom. It happened a few times, the barbel would come from downstream right up to my feet feeding in the disturbed bottom. I ended up catching them by wading out and shuffling my feet in the gravel and trotting a float down in the silt cloud, like Gudgeon fishing on a grand scale.

I do wonder if that plays a part in that feeding pattern we see with one fish at the front feeding then drifting to the back of the group. Perhaps the leader fish is disturbing the bottom and the ones behind are following the disturbed cloud its creating & swimming in that sort of V shaped pyramid formation behind the point fish ...the silt cloud spreading out as it washes downstream.

I have never seen the behaviour that Flight' and yourself describe. But it could be what has previously been misinterpreted as barbel grabbing an item of food and rushing off to prevent others from stealing it. When I have been watching them there hasn't been a leader or any sort of agreement. They seemed to travel in a loose group with no discernible heirachy or organisation. It is very interesting and I would love to know the reasoning behind it.

Like you, I have had fish follow my waders. Grayling seem particularly keen on disturbed gravel. When wading I have had grayling take the point fly whilst I was unhooking a fish taken on the dropper. I also found out the lucky way that tench will come close to the bank in shallow water after I had paddled out in my wellies to set up the front rod rest and extend my keepnet.

 

[nottskev]

Like you, I have had fish follow my waders. Grayling seem particularly keen on disturbed gravel. When wading I have had grayling take the point fly whilst I was unhooking a fish taken on the dropper. I also found out the lucky way that tench will come close to the bank in shallow water after I had paddled out in my wellies to set up the front rod rest and extend my keepnet.

A gravel pit I fish has awkward banks, so the best place to set up your box is on the flat gravel in 6"" of water with your feet on the bottom. Several times I've had tench and bream swim between my feet and my keepnet. I assume they are attracted to the the "raking" and picking up the little scraps of bait - changed maggots etc - that get dropped in. Although these fish are taking bait float fished a few feet further out, I've found they bolt if you drop a baited rig to them near your feet.

 

[@Clive]

Funnily enough that is how I ended up with the swim where I can watch bream, chub and barbel taking float fished baits. I normally fished a feeder rig mid-river from a high banking and realised that I caught more barbel if I cast alongside a nearside bush just a few yards downstream. Around the same time I had noticed those three species feeding in a few feet of water right underneath where I was sitting. They were mopping up the bits that fell out of the feeder when casting. I couldn't get a bite no matter how I tried. Eventually I opened up some access to the other side of the bush and discovered a slow 12 foot deep section right under the near bank, with the seam just a few feet out. Because the water was deeper or maybe because I was out of sight the fish took readily. I can see them, but they don't seem to be able to see me.