Improve Your Coarse Fishing (UK)
How to catch BIG BARBEL
Easy tactics to tame river giants
THERE are many reasons why barbel are such a popular species with river anglers. First and foremost, they are well distributed across the country, thriving in all types of river from raging tidal waterways to intimate streams you could jump across. They are willing feeders in all but the coldest of weather and at all times of day and night. Once hooked, they are incredibly powerful fighters. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly for those anglers looking to catch their first barbel or increase their personal best, you only need the simplest of rigs to catch the biggest barbel in the land. This month we’ve employed the services of one of the country’s finest barbel anglers, 57-year-old Ade Kiddell, to talk readers through the simple rig and bait tactics that have seen him catch over 4,000 barbel from more than 30 rivers around the UK and Europe over the past 20 years.
ACCESS ALL AREAS
These days, barbel are present in more of our rivers than ever before. Some of these – notably larger waterways such as the Wye, Severn and Trent – might have a larger overall head of fish than others, but the beauty of being a barbel angler is that huge fish can turn up in even the smallest running water venues. Proof can be found in the fact that the current British record of over 21lb came from the Adam’s Mill stretch of the Great Ouse, which is little more than 5 yards wide and 6ft deep! Wherever you live, there will be big barbel within striking distance, so the first task in the quest to up your barbel personal best should be to do a little research on productive local river stretches, and then purchase the necessary club book or day ticket. Most fishing clubs offer remarkable value for money, as Ade explained. “There are very few counties in England and Wales which don’t have rivers holding
barbel, and the tickets needed to fish for them are great value for money. Take the Birmingham AA book for example. It’s one of the biggest clubs in the land, yet the annual book is just £40 and you get access to dozens of stretches across eight fabulous barbel rivers, including the Wye, Severn, Trent and Teme – that’s enough barbel angling for a lifetime!” he said.
TACKLING UP
Once the permit has been purchased, the next task is make sure that your kit is up to the task of playing and landing hard-fighting barbel. The rod and reel combination you choose should be matched to the size of river
being targeted, although Ade recommends erring on the side of caution. “You need a rod with a bit of backbone, and I use 1.75lb Korum Xpert rods, which are fast-actioned and can handle the heavy feeders and hard-fighting fish. I pair these with medium freespool reels loaded with a minimum of 12lb line. If you’re fishing a river with a snaggy or rocky bottom, such as the Trent or Severn, then I would step that up to 15lb line,” said Ade. On many rivers, regardless of size, you see anglers fishing with two rods stuck up in the air, but Ade again urges caution when it comes to numbers. “Too many people assume that twice the rods means twice the bites, but that’s far from the truth. On the bigger rivers you can get away with two, but it will work against you on the smaller ones, leading to tangles and lost fish. It’s better to fish one rod properly than two rods half-heartedly,” he said. “Barbel hate going across tight lines – in fact they simply won’t do it. So having two bowstrings going out to your baits is a recipe for a blank. If you want to use two rods, it pays to keep them well apart, with one upstream and across the flow, and the other downstream and on the inside of the current – that way the fish don’t have to cross tight lines to get to your bait.”
NO-NONSENSE RIGS
The two watchwords for Ade when it comes to making up rigs for barbel fishing are ‘long’ and ‘strong’. There’s no need for anything more fancy than a mono hooklink, a strong
hook, and a running rig carrying a large openend groundbait feeder. What might surprise some readers is the length of Ade’s hooklinks, which never measure less than 3ft, and often go to 7ft or 8ft. There’s good reason for this, as he went on to explain. “Barbel perceive a danger area around the swimfeeder, caused by the tight mainline leading down to it. This causes them to back off to what they consider a safe distance, and you have to put your hookbait outside of that danger zone – hence the long hooklinks.” Ade generally uses 12lb for his hooklinks and, on snaggy rivers, use up to 15lb. He also ignores the trend of using split shot or putty to pin the hooklink to the deck. “On the riverbed, longer links behave far better than short ones – in fact, the longer they are, the more naturally they act,” he said. To the end of this, Ade ties a strongly-forged hook, before attaching it to a simple running rig set-up, which is not only ‘fish-safe’ in the event of line breakage, but also offers great presentation. When it comes to feeders, Ade matches the size of feeder to the depth and flow of the river being fished. “You need to use a heavy enough feeder to make it down to the bottom quickly and then stay put. The worst thing that can happen is for the feeder to empty on the way down, or to bounce around on the bottom, spreading the bait all over the place, with the fish going after it! A lot of the time I use the Korum River Feeders because they have a really low profile and hug the riverbed far better than standard, cylindrical swimfeeders, especially in heavy flows.
THE BAITING GAME
Barbel are eating machines, especially in summer, and can be caught using all manner of baits, from boilies and meat cubes, to maggots and worms. The best choice in summer, however, is pellets. Trout and halibut pellets form the mainstay of Ade’s loosefeed and often his hookbait. He has also caught big barbel using predrilled 8mm crab pellets, and sometimes will even switch to meat or sweetcorn, especially on smaller rivers. Whatever bait he chooses, Ade will always be sure to match it to the size of hook. If he’s offering a single 8mm crab pellet on a hair, he might use a size 12 or 14 hook, but when using 15mm pellets or boilies, he would choose a size 6 or 8 hook. To load the feeder, Ade simply plugs both
ends with fishmeal-heavy groundbait, with a mixture of small pellets of different sizes sandwiched in between. When it comes to picking a swim, Ade has a method of finding areas of the riverbed that the barbel will be happy to feed over. “I tie a 2oz or 3oz lead to the reel line – with no other tackle attached – and cast about, looking for gravel areas. I can’t overstate the importance of this. Find the gravel and you’ll find the barbel,” he said. With a suitable swim selected, the next step is to lay down a bit of loosefeed and get a flavour trail drifting down the current. To do this he uses an oversized cage feeder, which he crams with pellets and groundbait, casts to his spot, and then waits for it to empty before reeling in and repeating the procedure, typically three to five times over each spot he is fishing. “When fully loaded, the feeder is heavy and sinks to the bottom quickly. I know when it has emptied because the rod top will start dancing around as the empty feeder is being buffeted by the current.”
ACTION STATIONS!
Once he has cast out, Ade will then put his rod in the rest, with the angle between that and the water determined by the pace of the flow and how far out he is fishing. “You should position your rods only as high as you need to in order to hold station in the flow. Less line in the water means less pressure on the feeder, but if you’re fishing the inside line or the flow is minimal, there’s no need to point your rod to the sky!” Ade said. “Once the rod is out and holding station, I’ll leave it for about 25-30 minutes before recasting if I haven’t had a bite. Contrary to popular belief, barbel in most rivers don’t have predictable bite times. I’ve always found that, regardless of the hour, you often get a few bites in consecutive casts, followed by periods of inactivity, before another run of fish. Often it has nothing to do with the time of day, more so the movements of the fish. Ade’s final piece of advice concerns how to play any fish you hook. “My favourite saying is, ‘If the fish isn’t pulling you, you should be pulling it,’ – in other words, let the fish run when it wants to, but when it relents, its time to pile on the pressure. A common mistake, he says, it to keep the rod held high when playing barbel. “Contrary to popular belief, playing a barbel with the rod held low is far more effective than playing it with a rod held high. I promise that you’ll play fish to the net far quicker and more easily if you keep your rod lower to the water. Give it a go, you might be amazed!”
NEXT MONTH: BIG RUDD