Small Stream Magic

[BoldBear]

Last night after work I decided to have an evening session on the upper river Lea after a couple of Barbel.

After finding that my favourite Barbel swims were already occupied I went in search of another swim. I found a couple of promising ones but there were lots of Chub in these swims and I caught several from around 8oz up to around 1.7lb but it was Barbel that I was after and on this stretch of river the Barbel seem to stay away from the swims which hold Chub in quantity; so I went in search of a swim with features that attract the Barbel and had very few Chub in residence then I would have a much better chance of a Barbel or two.
After trying several swims I found the swim below:

The swim that I decided to fish. (NB. The flow was from left to right.)

The swim was at the tail end of a bed of streamer weed with a small eddie close to the bank, the flow increased where the bank narrowed slightly and there were several overhanging trees to the right.

I lowered a bait slowly into the eddie by the near bank and within a minute had a nice Barbel of 5lb 6oz; not big as far as barbel go but still a nice size for this stretch of small river.
The Barbel zoomed straight through the streamer weed upstream of me but at least I could bring it back down through the streamer weed to the landing net which would have been more difficult if the streamer weed had been below me. After a couple of heart stomping runs I was able to get its head above water and I knew it was in the net.

The First Barbel from this swim (5lb 6oz).

Ten minutes later I caught a tiny Barbel of around 12oz so at least they are spawning in this river. Over the next couple of hours I lost two more Barbel; one when the barbless hook came free during play and another when the line parted after catching on some underwater snag amongst the streamer weed. Unfortunately this spooks every other Barbel in a swim of this size so it was just a case of rebaiting and waiting. It got dark at around 9:30 last night and as soon as the light faded I got another smaller Barbel (see below) which weighed 2b 10oz.

Small Barbel (2lb 10oz)
On the hook I was using double hair rigged Crab flavoured Sonubait Pellet ‘O’s coated with Dynamite Halibut Paste and for loose feed I used small soft Dynamite Halibut pellets. Line was 6lb and hook was a barbless size 12. I used a short ½oz link leger with a 6in hooklength.

It's great fun fishing these stream-like rivers where you can see the bottom especially when they are less than half hour from your home. I keep meaning to go to one of our upper Great Ouse stretches above Bedford where the big Barbel reside; but I think I will leave my main Barbel campaign on the Great Ouse till around September time.

BB.

[Fishing Forum Admin]

Sounds a wonderful evenings fishing , well done on the barbel

[pingu]

what a way to wind down after work

nice one

dave

[Norfolkboy]

Good going mate, lovely barbel.

[fullcreel]

What a great way to spend the evenig, I wish my nearby streams had barbel in them. I have to drive 30 mins or so to get to a barbel water, then there real hard to get out, not had a barbel yet, but time willl reward me, I hope

[WolfAngler]

Nice one Boldbear, i havnt tried fishing for barbel, so i dont know how hard or easy it is, but i have a pretty good idea that those fish are lovely!

[Twiddler]

What a lovely way of ending a hard working day.

Those whiskers look in mint condition of what I can see on the pictures.

Picture 2: beautiful colouration on the fins and a sleak body....well done BB, truly some cracking barbel.
And who cares about the size, choosing the swim, fishing for them, catching them, playing them, enjoying the peace and tranquillity of nature that is the true joy of angling.

[Rob M]

Great report and well done on the barbel, they're a lovely looking fish.