Barbel BeginningsTHIS ARTICLE IS pretty much an overview of my barbel fishing, the highs and the lows. I hope you enjoy it and can maybe relate to some of the experiences yourselves. Well, my barbel fishing career is a short lived one. Having only caught two barbel at the time of writing I would not exactly call myself an expert. Although along the way I have learnt an awful lot in a short space of time. Having picked the brains of FM of course!
First and foremost I fish the Medway. If you look at the amount of hours I’ve put in my return has been poor. One small 12oz Barbel for a whole season’s wait. I wouldn’t have it any other way, despite the size that fish meant a lot to me. From the moment I saw it in the water I played it like a record, the little fellow was treated like gold, royalty in fact! My first season saw me concentrate on the weir, no good reason, purely because I didn’t know how to get to my other club stretches. I fished it whenever I could, tried different baits, rigs and swims. All failed. Well technically that’s not true; I managed a fair few chub along the way, not sizeable ones, but nice fish nonetheless. The chub managed to pick up pellets, boilies, maggots, casters and luncheon meat; nothing could wade through the ravenous chub. But I have to admit I would have given up without them, they turned otherwise blank days into good sport. In fact if it wasn’t for the chub I wouldn’t have even returned after my first trip last summer. The winter seemed to last for an eternity this year. It appeared to last right through till the start of the close season. Although I didn’t let the cold put me off, still going whenever I could, I managed to put together an impressive track record. Wait for it, a total of six clonking blanks each without a bite. Might I add this is six in a row. I was on the edge of disappearing and quite pleased in all honestly to see the start of the close season. A chance to refresh, have a little rest and catch a few carp and little tench. Over the close season I re-thought my tactics and decided to have a more uniform approach. Carry on fishing the trench down the middle of the weir and keep my tactics the same. I fished one rod with a small lump of luncheon meat and the other rod with a boilie. I used the Richworth dumbbell boilies, despite not having caught barbel from the Medway on them I caught numerous chub. Yet I still had total faith in them to catch me one.
On the second session of the season I managed a small barbel. I winkled the little guy out on a small chunk of good old luncheon meat. I was absolutely ecstatic, the photo says it all. It will certainly be a fish I will remember for the rest of my days. The time spent sitting on the bank, all those blanks, the rain, the cold all completely forgotten once I landed that fish. I soon found out where I can fish on the river now and I think this will certainly improve my catch rate. Fishing somewhere less pressured should prove to be easier shouldn’t it? I hope I don’t have to eat my words… A change of venue Now for a change of venue, well for a day or two at least. The renowned Thames, all the stories my dad has told me, chub on hand lines, monster catches of barbel coupled with monster blanks and of course the huge pike. Now finally I get to fish the place for myself. Although at this point I must stress fishing time was to be limited as this was a family event too. With both my half brothers and uncle coming I could see drinking was likely to be on the agenda. Well that would be my brothers priority anyway.
Day one didn’t result in fishing, arriving at noon and setting up tents and getting stuff sorted seemed to be the order of the day. The evening resulted in a trip down on Bella III to Flower Pot. Bella being my sisters’ name, Dad decided to name the little Burmese boat after her. The Flower Pot is the most delightful pub a fisherman could ever set eyes on. The whole of the pub has many, many stuffed fish, some very valuable ones too. It’s brilliant walking about staring at them all, the record grayling is particularly stunning. Then along came Sid Next morning and we’re starting day two of four; time flies. Whilst investigating the fishing and casting a line I bumped into a man called Sid. He seemed to have a lot of experience of the Thames and we sat and talked for the better part of thirty minutes. I saw some wonderful fish in his photos, enough to make any fishermen envious. Sid by the way has been fishing the river since a child and has a few years experience under his belt! In the latter part of the day he kindly offered to take me for a trip and assured me the River had been on form. We were confident of a catch. I was advised to fish large baits to avoid the bream and chub. So I fished two of these Richworth dumbells whilst my dad ignored this and fished a single one. Incidentally he turned out better for it. Sorry, a bit of a sidetrack there. Back to the fishing. So I turned up to Meet Sid at 19.00pm and we fished through till 21.00pm without a bite. Not as I had planned, but still this was only the beginning. I thought I’d fish the next morning as well, alarm set for 04.00am, rods sitting ready and waiting. Today turned out to be a bit more productive, dad being the one catching though. By 05.10am he’d managed a 4lb chub, jammy sod.
One hour later and I’d had a bite or five but no 4ft twitch or anything to lift into. Things were looking up for dad, the tip slams round, and his carp rod is going mental. “I’m snagged Christian, I’m snagged, I’ve lost it.” “Stay calm Dad its probably just holding bottom.” For once I was right, a big barbel carried on plodding around mid river. A few minutes and the big girl was giving up, soon in the net. His hands were trembling and I myself was in shock. I don’t think I’d ever seen a fish with proportions like these; its girth was huge. Dad was convinced it was a double, in fact I too thought it was going to pull the scales round a full circle. We unhooked her quickly in the water and Dad got in for a photo, fish safety was always on our minds. The scales pulled round to 9lb 12oz, we were both shocked yet not disappointed. The fish weighed 9lb 4oz after deducting the weight of the weigh sling, but it was still a new PB. She sat below us for a minute or so before powering off back into the river, we had no doubt she went back fighting fit. We both stopped fishing at 9.00am and went back to the tent. The glow in both our faces just didn’t stop. Finding it hard to believe we’d actually caught a fish this size I kept needing to check the photo. Yup, he’d caught it, but I’m just letting him have the first few before I catch the record, or at least equal it. We didn’t fish that evening; my brothers decided they were taking him out on the razz. To their disappointment he didn’t co-operate, he had his priority’s straight. Fishing in the Morning. The alarm sounds and it’s 04.00am, doom and gloom as it turns out as heavens have opened. We decide to give it a miss, after all, fishing should be fun and this is a holiday. I thought I’d dangle a line for an hour or so in the evening. Finally the bite I’ve been waiting for, a classic barbel wrap-around ripped my 1.5lb test curve rod and 15lb reel line into the air. I strike and I’m into a big fish. By now I’m certain it’s bigger then the 12oz baby from the Medway. I managed to get it within 10 metres relatively quickly, no need to prolong the fight with strong tackle. The sudden lunges kept going but in the end it gave up. It was obviously exhausted, and a good fish too. I unhooked it and weighed it in the water at 7lb 2oz; nothing was going to spoil this for me. Just one quick photo on the self timer and that was it.
I was standing waist deep in the water holding the fish to recover for what must have been 10 minutes before I felt happy to let it go. I watched it swim off and felt happy. Quickly I rushed back to the tent, dad was having a snooze; lazy. “Dad, dad, wake up I caught a 7lb Barbel!” I show him the dodgy picture. “That looks like a barbel,” he said. Still half in a daze, he grabs his rod and follows me to the spot. This is where my barbel fishing events start to take a turn for the worse.Dad spotted the barbel in the water belly up in some streamer weed. I was distraught, to say the least. After all the standing with it I did I was gutted, it was going to be a memorable capture for all the wrong reasons. I waded out and stood with it for 15mins, during this time it flicked its tail and shook its head every so often but when I gave it the chance to swim it buried into the weed and went belly up. Dad now took over and did the same. He tried for another 15 minutes and decided there was nothing more we could do. Although by this time he was looking slightly better and not completely belly up, if this makes sense. We put him somewhere where we thought he would recover and hoped for the best. This was definitely the most traumatic experience of my fishing career. I couldn’t take it of my mind. The next morning at 4am the fish was gone. All I could do was hope for the best. There was nothing else I could do.
On a happier note, dad managed a 5lb 4oz bream and 5lb 8oz barbel. Fluky man had four of the five fish. So I didn’t manage to catch the biggest fish, a record or the most fish but still it will certainly be a memorable session with very mixed feelings. I learnt two things on this trip, one being fish location. Thanks to Sid we knew where the fish were, we didn’t bait up at all, not one free offering. Using bait I had confidence in and good location caught us fish. To end it I really would like to stress the importance of fish safety, especially through the warmer months of summer. I would advise anyone new to barbel to have researched fish safety or try to get hold of a copy of August’s Coarse Fishermen magazine as it has a page dedicated to returning and handling Barbel. |
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