ARTHUR’S ARCHIVES

Before the Trent became Britain’s major barbel river the record was jointly held by fish from the Thames and Hampshire Avon

Crow’s barbel, 1960

“Back in the 1960s the Avon was still largely a salmon river”

WHILE not quite ten-a-penny, it is fair to say that 16lb barbel turn very few heads these days. Sixty years ago it was very different.

The record – or, rather, records as there were three matching fish – was 14lb 6oz, and hadn’t been beaten since the first of this trio was captured from Molesey Weir on the Thames in Victorian times, only equalled.

When the late Colonel Crow (pictured above) announced in 1960 that a salmon angler, a Mr Cassell, had taken a 16lb 1oz barbel from The Bridge Pool at Ibsley, on the Hampshire Avon, the news turned a lot of heads.

Remember that back in the 1960s the Avon was still largely a salmon river with some beats exclusively reserved for salmon anglers until their season ended in, I think, October.

The most famous stretch, the Royalty, could be fished for coarse fish alongside salmon anglers but the best pools, such as the Parlour, were priced in a way that deterred maggotdrowners. Maggots were even banned there for quite a time.

The Royalty was the haunt of the great specimen anglers of their day. FWK Wallis was one of those barbel record-holders who caught his 14-pounder from the Royalty in 1937. He invented the ‘Wallis Cast’ for the centrepin, where the line between reel and butt ring was pulled as the float was cast to make the reel spin.

Using that technique, and suitably large floats, he was able to cast to the far bank of the Avon, probably using the Wallis Wizard rod.

I recall my fishing buddy at the time bought one. It was 11ft long, with a whole cane butt section and split-cane middle and tip. The cork handle was short, making it easier to use the eponymous cast.

I fished the Royalty a few times in the 1960s...when maggots were allowed...and what a stretch of river it was then, and still is now.