Quest for Stuarts first real Barbel.

[BoldBear]

My son Stuart has only ever caught one Barbel of around the 1lb mark a few years ago and wanted to remedy this, so I decided to take him Barbeling on Wednesday evening after work.

On arriving at one of my clubs better Barbel stretches we found the car park full so we had to turn around and go to a lesser stretch where the stream is much narrower and the Barbel tend to be a lot smaller, but at least Stuart would stand a chance of catching a beard or two.

On arrival we found the stream very shallow after the lack of any real rain other than a few small showers. Stuart wasn’t convinced that he would be catching any Barbel as we could only see Chub moving in the shallow water in front of us with no Barbel showing.
I told Stuart that the Barbel would start to appear from nowhere once the light started to fade but I don’t think he believed me.

After a quick tour of the different swims; most of which looked too shallow to hold any decent fish; Stuart decided to fish at the top end of the fishery where the stream wound under some trees while I elected to fish about 30 yards downstream of him on a bend.

We were both using spiced luncheonmeat however Stuart was using it on a short hair while I was using it mounted directly on the hook.

Although we had several chub bites taking our tips right round we both had only one Chub on the bank each and it looked like we might have a blank as far as Barbel went, but at the last knockings I connected with a small Barbel of around 3.5 to 4lbs which fought like hell and gave Stuart a bit more confidence that they were there, and within minutes Stuart connected to a similar sized barbel which put a smile on his face and turned a disappointing evening into a pleasant one where we had both managed to catch what we had set out to catch, albeit a bit smaller than we had hoped.

The small stream that we fished (my swim)


Stuarts Chub and Barbel


My Chub and Barbel (the float was just used for scale purposes, we both used small link legers)


Tight lines

Keith (BoldBear)

[Baz T]

Well done - and you proved that Dad always knows best (well on this occasion anyway..lol), as you were right about the barbel appearing as light faded. Looks a nice stream too.

[PikeHunter]

Very, very nice mate!

[dave fish]

great report nice barbel ,theirs a stream near me with a nice coverage of trees and rushes looks like it might hold fish but i darent fish it in case it turns out to be a wasted journey hoe do i find out if it does hold fish ?without wetting a line

[Sir Blanks-alot]

Nice report buddy! Its always good to land your intended species! Must be good belonging to a club which have such good river fishing on its books. Would kill to fish some barbel waters but theres nothing around here at all.

[BoldBear]

Originally Posted by dave fish

great report nice barbel ,theirs a stream near me with a nice coverage of trees and rushes looks like it might hold fish but i darent fish it in case it turns out to be a wasted journey hoe do i find out if it does hold fish ?without wetting a line

Is the stream clear or does it become clear when the water is low and there has not been any rain? If it does I would don a pair of pollaroids, and keeping low carefully watch the likely spots like the outside of bends, the deeper glides, and between beds of weed etc. maybe throwing some small soft pellets and watching for any action while keeping out of sight or maybe catapult some floating casters or small pieces of breadflake on the surface and watch its progress downstream looking for any movement on the surface (you can do this even if the water is not that clear); this is normally more productive in the early mornings or evenings when the sun is fairly low in the sky.

Best of luck & tight lines

Keith (BoldBear)

[blackwater]

Well done both of yous, nice report.

[Greenheart]

Nice one BB. I love small streams like that. Fishing them is becoming a forgotten art in these days of stocked carp puddles.

[dave fish]

Originally Posted by BoldBear

Is the stream clear or does it become clear when the water is low and there has not been any rain? If it does I would don a pair of pollaroids, and keeping low carefully watch the likely spots like the outside of bends, the deeper glides, and between beds of weed etc. maybe throwing some small soft pellets and watching for any action while keeping out of sight or maybe catapult some floating casters or small pieces of breadflake on the surface and watch its progress downstream looking for any movement on the surface (you can do this even if the water is not that clear); this is normally more productive in the early mornings or evenings when the sun is fairly low in the sky.

Best of luck & tight lines

Keith (BoldBear)

cheers for the help will try that again thanks tight lines

[Fishing Forum Admin]

great read thanks