THIS WEEK BARBEL

THERE’S been a big boom in barbel fishing over the last decade.

Once, if you wanted to catch a barbel, you had to head to southern rivers such as the Hampshire Avon or Dorset Stour, but now almost every British river holds them to a good size. Certainly, the rise to prominence of the prolific River Trent has seen a massive upturn in the number of anglers fishing for this species.

Classic ways of catching barbel still exist, such a trotting pacey swims on the Rivers Severn and Wye, but nowadays fishing static feeder or leger tactics with large baits takes some beating.

Tackle needs to be up to the job. Often, slightly scaled-down carp tactics work well, and that carp influence is also carried over into baits. Boilies and pellets reign supreme and these, combined with PVA bags, will put your feed right next to the hookbait.

It therefore makes sense to use two rigs that take in boilies and PVA for this week’s challenge, which is to catch a river barbel.

Autumn is the time of year when barbel begin to put a bit of weight on and respond to extra colour and flow generated by rainfall.

A bag approach will work best in fast water when feeding by hand isn’t accurate enough, or the range is too far for a bait dropper, but on smaller rivers, changing over to a single paste-wrapped hookbait fished among a scattering of free offerings is just the job.

Don’t be discouraged by those pictures of massive 15lb-plus barbel that you see on the news pages of Angling Times most weeks. Yes, we’d all love to bag a monster, but the reality is that for a quick fix on your one day on the bank, a 7lb or 8lb fish will give you just as much fun. These river fish don’t half pull your string!