Roving for Barbel

Duncan with a spirited barbel, caught from his last swim of the day!

Last week, Duncan Charman and I headed to the river with our minds set on a barbel. We opted to rotate a few swims between us on the particular beat, with opportunistic roving tactics. Having limited hours to put this into practise, it all paid dividends when Duncan managed a hard-fighting and spirited young barbel in the final swim of the day. It clearly demonstrated that keeping on the move increased our chances, as Duncan had also lost a barbel and had various other enquiries on his rod tip throughout the course of the trip. For me, I had one 'bang' on the tip which could well have been a chub's inspection, but the main problem was that the crayfish were more of a domineering influence in the swims. This made 'dropping in' on the barbel somewhat difficult for me on this given day.

The time could not have come better for my next session, with quite a bit of rainfall and overcast conditions. The first swim I had chosen had all the characteristics of a good barbel swim with a nice and steady flow, forming a crease with slacker water and some nice cover. The bait I used was the same as that of my successful trip on the Wye, the West Country Slick Sense hardened hookers. On this occasion, I decided to wrap a bit of matching paste round the bait to increase the scent in coloured water. In the first swim, I lowered my hookbait towards the cover in the slightly pacier side of the flow. All that was to come of this cast was a greedy and rather large Signal Crayfish, although this did not put me off a recast. This time I decided to lower the bait into the crease within the swim. I had a good feeling about it, as I knew if a barbel was home, that a take would be on the cards pretty quick! Around 15 minutes in, right on queue, the line started to tighten before the rod rod steadily whacked round. I lifted into what felt like a rather sluggish fish at first. As I started to guide it upstream, it was then when it woke up. I kept the drag reasonably tight with the tight swim and held the fish as best as I could. When line started to be taken from the spool, I knew I had hooked a barbel. After some fantastic final lunges for freedom, I managed to safely net my first barbel from the river. Following some well earned minutes revival, I put the beautiful fish on the scales.

A lovely 6lb 9oz whisker!

The fish was slightly larger than I initially thought at 6lb 9oz, and was a well built fighting machine! Although this was to be the only fish of the session, it was a real joy to have landed one opportunistically and during the day. It is fair to say that I am certainly looking forward to getting back on the river and putting some time in in the witching hours! Thanks goes to Duncan for his introduction to approaching barbel during the day on this roving tactic.

Tight Lines,

Tom