Barbel in still waters

[TF_JohnH]

I note from the Lindholme results that weights of barbel are reported. Cudmore arena has high stocks and White acres too has barbel in some lakes.
Obviously they will feed in winter unlike normal carp so I can see some merit but I wonder what the logic is in stocking them?
Anyone have an opinion?

[TF_baitchefParticipant]

We have them at my local Milemead Fisheries and they are thriving. They are also ravenous and a picture of health. The lake has a very natural (crabtreesque) feel to it with an abundance on natural wildlife and food items etc.
They have grown very quickly and put up a good scrap.

[TF_Cutnut]

In the right waters they appear to do well and seem robust enough to tolerate the pressure of being caught time and again, similar to stocked carp.

I guess the reasoning is that they offer an alternative to carp and will keep on feeding all year and therefore more bums on seats=more cash in the fishery coffers.

[TF_JohnH]

In my experience on waters containing carp, they tend to dominate and bully other fish away. Fisho on Cudmore has been won both on carp and barbel. The barbel do seem to thrive in there (and are considerably easier to catch down the edge).
We have stocked skimmers with carp and they seem to just dissapear so barbel maybe the way to go for all year round fishing.
Whilst at W/A in August I had a few barbel in Polly lake and they dont half rip the rod around even though they are only 1-2lb..

[TF_CriagH66]

We have had two stockings of fingerling barbel now in a syndicate pool in the Midlands. First was about four years ago, second two years ago. These fish are thriving and are caught at approx 3-4lb and 1-2lb accordingly with some already being weighed at over 6lb. They are spawning successfully as the occasional smaller fish is caught. Their growth rate is incredible.
These fish definitely bully other fish off the feed and easily compete with the larger carp. You can have a rake of carp in a margin swim, tails up all over, lower in your bait to have a barbel rip out the elastic. They fight like demons.
As yet we have only had one fish belly up in four years and this fish had been damaged by poor angling practice. The general health of these fish is excellent, pristine even, despite being caught regularly. I think the thick leathery mouth provides excellent resilience to potential hook damage from the inexperienced few. These are hardy fish and completely throw the purist few of not suitable for still water.
Unlike some posts above the barbel in this lake completely disappear in the Winter. We suspect they ball up in one enormous shoal in a deeper part of the lake. Surprising how they turn up the following year spring having gained more weight. We have every confidence of these fish reaching double figures in years to come.
As a footnote I must add we weigh in and release immediately all fish caught in matches over 4lb to help protect from keepnet damage, also carp significantly over the 6lb mark. Bit of a pain in the arse, but with four sets of scales between 24 anglers, still sufficient time in five hours to weigh in 100lb + weights,

[TF_GLEBE1]

The ones in Mallory dissapeared in winter, very rare anyone would catch one amazing when you could have a ton of them in summer.
I was asking Roy the other week about them and he thinks now after 10 or more years most of them have probably died as they only have a certain life span like all fish.
Personally I found them a pain in the arse, a night mare to land, ripping through the peg unsettling the carp you even used to catch them shallow 6inches deep!

[Anonymous]

They have been in Cudmore lakes for at least 15 years. Never seen any real problems with them. Always seem healthy and fight well. Seen them to 11lb in Cudmore.

They feed well in winter on most of the pools but tend to ball up very tight and dont move around very much once the water gets very cold(caught them from same pegs every year). Draw one of those few pegs and its just a case of finding them but that can be more difficult than you might think. Amazing how they can all be in such a small area of a few favoured pegs. Fish a meter from where they are sat and you woud think they where not there. Find them and its bag up time!

Caught them a few times 1ft deep in 14ft of water in the middle of winter from one very well known pleasure peg when i just want a bit of fun.

Not sure spawn ever servives on commercial venues as the eggs need clean gravel and loads of oxygen for the eggs to servive. I thnk a few small fingerling stock fish just never grow. Others of the same year class pack on weight very fast.

[TF_JohnH]

Had a quick look on info available and some conflict on how long they live. Some say 15 some 30 plus years. Strange how they shoal up in winter.

[TF_AdzTParticipant]

They are stocked in my local water, and I’ve never caught a damaged fish and the 5lb plus fish fight harder than a double figure carp. I love catching them cos they fight so hard.

[Anonymous]

hayfield stocked them a few times about 10 years ago but they seemed to disappear after a couple of years.can remember loads on pellet shallow when pleasure fishing.thought it very strange. 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁

[TF_Matchman_25]

Well without doubt this is a very controversial conversation but I have a recent example where perhaps Barbel is worthy.

I was fishing in a match at a venue which winning weights are usually around 20-0-0 of Ide, Skimmers, Roach, Perch and the occasional Carp, Tench or Barbel. On the day I won the match with 21-4-0 mainly big ide but included in my bag was two 1-0-0 to 1-8-0 Barbel!!! At the start I thought what a great bonus and I proudly had my head up high but after I had a little think when an angler said “that’s so unfair on them Barbel!” I thought about Cudmore, one of the best commercial match fishing venues in the country and of course the holders of the well-known Fish ‘O’ Mania and I considered the fact that thousands of Barbel were forced into a lake, Stillwater, no flow, etc. Surely they have genes which say “I don’t like this!” Is it immoral…….? But yet they never have problems otherwise they wouldn’t be stocked…?

On the other hand the people who really hate Barbel in lakes and commercials are the true, tradition river, waggler anglers such as Keith Arthur and Dave Harrell. Maybe as these people are the images of modern day angling shouldn’t they broadcast a more fair and unbiased view instead of the constant criticism of Barbel in lakes…?

[TF_JohnH]

Interesting comments, I dont expect the traditionalsits to like it, no more than they like heavily stocked commercials with F1 carp etc. However river fishing is a distant memory for many not least due to access but also many rivers are just a shadow of what they were.
Our club has 500 members 300 of whom are retired miners or steel workers with all sorts of medical conditions. They can just about manage a short walk. They do love their carp fishing and can chuck out a bomb with pellet and have their string pulled all day.
We are looking at the options we have to increase their enjoyment and barbel are one such option.
As part of our fishing the club runs about 4 miles of river which has been smashed around by summer floods over the last few years, we did consider installing some platforms but we would be re installing them every year!! A weir that held back some flow to form a canal section was destroyed in 2007 and we have not been allowed to rebuild it. Very few bother to fish it whereas the lake is heavily used so we simply have to deliver what our guys want.

[diddly-squattParticipant]

I pretty sure Keith Arthur’s not against barbel in still waters???

[TF_Matchman_25]

@diddly-squatt wrote:

I pretty sure Keith Arthur’s not against barbel in still waters???

Read some of his column in the Angling Times!

[diddly-squattParticipant]

Think I’ll go on mfs and ask him

[TF_Dodge]

I used to love catching barbel on commercial venues when i used to fish them a lot. They fight hard and are good “weighers” and are pretty easy to catch. Lots of venues in the NW started to stock them and in most they have seemed to thrive , Heronbrook and Cudmore being examples. However in my experience barbel tend to “shoal” in certain areas where they feel comfortable and this does lead to problems …… foul hooking being one major factor , barbel do eat a lot of stuff and heavy feeding with worms or maggots has worked for a number of years, this again sees lots of barbel foul hooked whilst preoccupied with feeding …….. this cant be good for the barbels welfare can it ? it also happens with carp on a bigger scale but folk rarely give this a mention ? funny that innit ! Lastly barbel thrived in a lake on a commercial local to me (Pine @ Blundells) they grew quickly and were solid healthy fish ……… problem was in winter almost all the barbel in said lake “holed” up in a deeper hole on a certain peg all winter long for a couple of winters …….. anglers cottoned on (rover matches) and big weights were had off said peg (bomb or feeder fished maggot) ………… all the barbel died ! Lots of theories , 2+2 = 5 etc etc but all the pressure those fish encountered surely didnt help there welfare did it ? All said plenty of barbel doing very well @ Heronbrook and Cudmore it seems 🙂

[diddly-squattParticipant]

I Pm’d Keith on another site here’s his response:

I am habitually misquoted on many things. This is my latest thought on the matter, the full version of my copy that went to Angling Times that was subbed for the 21/8 edition. I think it’s pretty clear where I stand on the matter.

Cheers

Keith

There are probably a few people who still fling their hands in the air at the thought of barbel in lakes, with absolutely no justification except tradition to back their opinion.

They may or may not breed in lakes but, in most cases, nor do carp and some fishery owners claim their barbel have bred and have year classes to back those claims.

I have yet to see a manky-looking barbel in a lake, honestly not one, yet I see plenty of battered-looking samples caught from rivers. Whether barbel survive as long in lakes is another matter but, according to many fishery owners, nor do bream, roach or any of the other species, possibly because they are subjected to a high-oil, high-protein diet because anglers tend to use fish food to catch them rather than bait and, if you didn’t ever think about it before, there is a huge difference between the two.

Now what is thought to be the largest-ever match weight of barbel has been landed from Decoy lakes. I would be very interested to know whether there were any casualties after the weigh-in as another misconception is that barbel don’t ‘do well’ in keepnets. Again, as far as stillwaters are concerned, there would appear to be little, if any, actual avidence to support that. I’ve caught hundreds, of not thousands, of barbel from rivers and VERY few from stillwaters but the only ones that ever turn belly-up are those that go back without a rest in a keepnet that I’ve pegged ‘wrong-way-round’ with the bottom UPstream.

I don’t take a keepnet barbel fishing these days but I sometimes have to hold a fish in the flow, heading upstream, for several minutes before I am confident enough to let it go yet even then occasionally one still rolls over and needs rescuing. That job must surely be better done by a well-pegged keepnet, darkened by the mesh and without being held.

Incidentally, bream have a similar habit of turning over and I am SURE they are playing possum. It is ESSENTIAL to right them, even in a keepnet, because fish seem to hold their breath when laid on their back and WILL die unless righted. They don’t seem particularly knackered either, it’s possibly a defence mechanism.

[Anonymous]

Dodge, if you feed heavy on a natural bream venue. You will get line bites and foul hook bream (especially if your pole fishing). Even the odd roach is foul hooked and landed on natural venues. I,ve lost count of the amount of times i,ve seen anglers missing a bite a chuck on the canal while fishing with hemp. Most of those missed bites are line bites (flash bites). A change of depth/rig/feeding pattern and its a fish a chuck! What do you think is happening when you bump or lose a fish on a natural water? Funny how those bumped/lost fish always feel like bonus bigger fish in our minds that could have won us the match or section, lol. Its not the hook slipping out of the fishes mouth, imho. Just foul hooked silver fish in the same way as carp or barbel on commercials are lost!

I personally hate foul hooking fish on any type of venue. I dont believe its good for my swim and the weights im attempting to put together. Its not likely to be good for the fish either as you suggest, Dodge. So, i change the way i fish to reduce the chances of foul hooking them. Its just more noticable that your foul hooking carp and barbel on commercials because of the types of hooks and the lack of or type of scales on carp and barbel. More chance of the hook going in to the skin of carp(mirrors) and barbel and landing them than your hook going between the scales in the case of silver fish or common carp. (not often you land a foul hooked common carp/F1 unless its hooked in a fin). I would suggest that 99% of all lost/bumped fish on any type of venue are because of foul hooking. Dont hear you worrying about foul hooking on silver fish venues but bet you think you have just lost a bonus, match winning fish on your natural venues every time you lose a fish!

There has been a few mass barbel fish kills in the North West over the years that i know of. It seems to be something to do with very high air pressure or a massive change in air pressure and a lack of good airation. Several fisheries had the same problems at the same time and some fisheries needed to borrow extra airators from close by fisheries to stop there barbel from being wiped out

[Author]

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