Dr Paul Garner
Want barbel? Try Paul Garner’s tips
Our expert reveals his secrets for making brilliant barbel baits
AQUICK flick through the news pages of Angling Times will reveal that one bait has come to dominate specimen barbel fishing.
With the fish feeding up hard in readiness for winter, there is a lot going for boilies when targeting barbel. These tough, long-lasting baits are convenient to use, and tend to be more barbel-specific than smaller baits, so less recasting after dark is required.
Of course, the easy answer is to simply buy a bag of boilies from your local tackle shop, but if you are looking for an edge, making your own can make a significant difference and be well worth the time and effort involved.
WHY BOILIES?
Although originally developed for carp, it is not surprising that boilies have proved so effective for barbel. The two species are quite alike in the way they feed and can handle relatively large baits with ease. There are many similarities in the attractors used for both species, with classic fishy flavours such as Crab & Krill or Monster Crab equally effective as spicy baits.
Let’s not forget that for carp sweet baits tend to be more effective through the winter, and the same applies to barbel. Try Scopex, caramel and chocolate malt baits on the river as the temperature falls.
With so many barbel anglers using boilies now, there can be few barbel that do not know that they are a nutritious food source.
This means that there is no need to pile in the bait – often a light approach, with just a handful of bait, can be the best approach, just as it is for carp.
I use a little-and-often baiting strategy, often using a PVA stringer to deposit baits tight to the hookbait rather than filling a swim in and just hoping that the barbel will arrive.
SHAPES AND SIZES
One advantage of making your own boilies is that the baits don’t have to be round, and the barbel won’t have seen unusual shapes before.
On hard-fished stretches this will definitely bring more bites. Flattened baits hug the bottom better and be less likely to roll away in the current. Ragged baits let out much more flavour, especially if you tear them to shape as you need them.
Recently I have been experimenting with making flat sheets of boiled paste and then using a bait punch to make my hookbaits. This way I can vary the size, and the uncooked core of the bait will be exposed. This leaks out
more attraction. With this tactic I can easily change from an 8mm bait to a 20mm one, just by using a different size of punch, giving me maximum flexibility.
Cubes are another shape that are easy to produce. Boil flattened lumps of paste until they have a firm skin then, once cooled, cut them to size with a sharp knife.
Of course, you can always produce round or pellet-shaped baits either by hand or by using boilie rollers. To get a pellet shape, simply roll a 12mm sausage through a 15mm or 18mm roller.
PELLET BOILIES
When you factor in the time required to make your own boilies it probably makes more sense to buy them ready-made, but this
does take away the satisfaction of catching on your own baits. Many a time I have not been able to buy exactly what I want to use, so making my own has become the only option. This especially applies to hookbaits, when odd shapes and flavours and semibuoyant wafters might not be readily available.
One common mistake is to believe that bottom baits are more effective in rivers than wafters. Often you will read that these slow-sinking baits will be washed around far too much, but this is rarely true. Once a bait comes to rest on the bottom it is in fact in a narrow zone where there is very little flow indeed. So the bait will tend to stay put, especially if the bottom is gravelly.
I use balanced baits a lot in my barbel fishing, and filming this summer has proved that these are picked up more easily than heavier baits. They are normally wrapped in a matching paste to further boost their pulling power.