Some Thoughts on Winter Barbel

Some Thoughts on Winter Barbel

The rivers of southern Yorkshire have a different character from their northern cousins. They have suffered grievously from the ravages of the industrial revolution and until recently many of them were open sewers, devoid of life. Now, after years of hard graft, they are undergoing a renaissance and offer some fine fishing. They offer one advantage: they rise in low country and flow for the most part through built up areas and are therefore a degree or so warmer than the rivers of the northern dales. This makes a winter barbel session on the river Don a viable proposition when the Swale, Wharfe and Ure are out of condition.

It was the weekend of the John Ledger Memorial Match on the river Idle. Those who attended know how foul the conditions were and only a hardy few actually fished the whole 5 hours of the match. We soon thawed out in the warm and welcoming Haxey Gate Inn and raised a glass or two to the memory of Mr L.

A high and coloured River Don

Rising for a late breakfast on Sunday revealed a much better day and I was tempted to have another try for the Idle roach, but the Don is only a few miles away and I’d thrown a barbel rod and some pellets in the car before leaving home. The late start and heavy traffic going into Doncaster meant that it was 11 o’clock before I arrived at the river which left only a few hour’s fishing as I had to be home for 3 o’clock.

A high and coloured River Don

The Don was about 3ft up and pushing through strongly so I chose a swim below a large bush with slack water down the inside and a nice crease a rod length out. I fed a small handful of mixed pellets out into the crease, put a couple more handfuls into a bait box to soak, dropped my thermometer into the margins and started to tackle up. A few minutes later I checked the water temperature: 7 C (45o F). The cold rain on Saturday followed by a cold, clear night meant that the temperature was almost certainly on its way down. I’d have to keep feed to a minimum, but there was still a chance of a fish.

I drained the soaked pellets, gave them a good glug with The Source liquid and pressed a few into a small Drennan cage feeder. My hook-bait was an 8mm Sonu Baits Hali Hooker banded on to a size 12 hook. I find that once a pack of these Halli Hookers have been opened for a week or two they are best banded as they have a tendency to split and fall off a hair. I lobbed the feeder out to land just beyond the crease and let it sink on a tight line. After it hit bottom the rod top nodded a couple of times as the feeder rolled and settled just inside the crease. Perfect.

The first half hour was uneventful and I only had to re-cast once due to rubbish build up on the line. I was just beginning to plan what to do if I didn’t get a bite in the next half hour when the rod top twitched. A minute later it pulled slowly round and I lifted into a decent barbel. The fight wasn’t too bad for a winter fish, no doubt helped by the powerful flow, but I soon had it in the net. It was a typical Don fish of around 6lbs, short for its weight and broad across the back.

After returning the fish I recast and sat back in my chair feeling a lot more confident about catching another fish. Over the next 1 1/2 hours I had an indication nearly every cast, mostly quivers or short pulls, but none of them hittable. At first I put them down to chub or bream, but then I remembered a conversation with my mate Mick Beecroft earlier in the week and I began to think. And as I thought, a large piece of jigsaw puzzle materialised on the bank beside me.

A fat River Don 6lber. Note the eroded fins common in Don barbel

Mick had been fishing the river Trent in similar conditions of a high coloured river with falling temperatures. He too had been plagued by unhittable bites and the two fish he did hook came adrift during the fight. We’d concluded that the bites were all probably from barbel, but that they weren’t feeding in their usual manner and were simply picking up the baits in their lips and dropping them rather in the manner of wary chub. Barbel don’t have the finesse in their gobs that chub have, so a few fish are generally hooked lightly on the outside of their mouths, and then come adrift.

Hmm… Let’s assume that the indications are caused by barbel and that they are picking the bait up and not just knocking the feeder. How to hook them?

There was a word on the jigsaw piece: ‘maggots’. I had some maggots left over from yesterday, so I fed a few at the head of the swim, threaded three on to my size 12 hook, put a few pellets in the feeder and re-cast. Bingo! Ten minutes later the rod top twitched in a similar fashion to the previous bites, but then pulled slowly round. It was a barbel of about 5lb. This was repeated a short while later when I hooked and landed a 6-pounder. I had to pack up after this last fish, but I’m convinced I’d have had several more fish if I’d stayed. So what was happening?

The first fish gave a fairly typical barbel bite, pulling the rod top round and hooking itself in the process. Then the twitches started. Now I’m not convinced that these were due to the barbel becoming nervous. I think they started feeding on the pellets, but due to the cold water conditions this feeding spell was very short. Fish are cold blooded creatures and in cold conditions their digestive processes are very slow. I think that when the water temperature is dropping they regulate their food intake to avoid having a large mass of undigested food in their stomachs during the cold spell. They are also opportunist feeders and instinctively feel the need to take advantage of any food source that presents itself. They therefore don’t stop feeding and continue to go through the motions, picking up and discarding larger food items, but swallowing small particles. Or maybe they just like the taste and suck them like lollipops, I don’t really know. Whatever the reason, they are still taking the bait into their mouths and three maggots are much more difficult to pick up and eject than a banded or hair rigged pellet. Or maybe the maggots are small enough to provoke a feeding response….

So here are my learning points:

• On cold, high rivers extreme care is needed with feeding. Small quantities of a smelly bait is probably best and I really rate The Source as a bait glug in these circumstances.
• The conventional wisdom of using large baits in high, coloured water doesn’t hold in these circumstances. I’m perfectly happy with an 8mm pellet on a small hook.
• Don’t put knocks and quivers down to nuisance fish, they are often barbel.
• When barbel are behaving like this use maggots on the hook. 3 on a size 12 or 2 on a size 14 is fine. I don’t think you need to feed maggots, just replace your original hook bait.
• From now on I’m taking a half pint of maggots with me on every winter barbel session.

Why the Don is well worth a try. My Don PB at just under 10lb caught in appalling conditions