It seems barbel are slowly making their way across Northern Europe with reasonable numbers now turning up in the big Dutch rivers. Fish are now being caught in the Rhine, Waal and Maas to name a few. I know that Duncan is keen on checking out the potential of these huge waterways. The scale of these places is vast with huge Ocean going barges passing. Current reports suggest fish to around the 14lb mark but this is could just be the tip of the iceberg as the fishing is so untapped. The going baits at the moment are cheese, boilies and paste wrapped baits. It will be very interesting to see if the halibut pellet revolution of the UK happens on these rivers. At present the Dutch lads are not convinced of the “Power of the Pellet – watch this space.

Below is an excerpt from Duncan’s article which is an interesting look at some of the major Southern barbel rivers.
 

“Enough about me lets move onto the rivers that surround my home, which are numerous. Before moving on to my beloved River Loddon lets talk about a tiny river within two miles from my home, the River Wey. This tiny Thames Tributary originates in the meadows around the small town of Alton, where I was born. Just ten miles further downstream, within a river I could jump across; well maybe twenty years ago live barbel-exceeding 16lbs! These barbel were introduced at quite a large size, some years back, as far as I know from one of our more famous rivers the Kennet. Now moving back to the River Wey’s Source in Alton I only heard this weekend that around this area tiny finagling barbel have started to appear, not stocked as far as I am aware, just appeared. This story is not isolated, the barbel have in the right environment started to become established, take over as the most dominant species and thrive with force.

This great little story though does not cover some of our larger rivers that seem to have an imbalance where their stocks seem to have decreased over the years and one that has become more obvious after reading a book about the upper Thames by Peter Stone. This book describes how well distributed barbel were back in the 1950s but today very little seems to be published about this area, probably because the barbel have almost disappeared along with the anglers targeting them. The upper Thames does produce barbel, in fact only a couple of years ago the river record came from this area which seemed to put the Thames back on the map but apart from a few dedicated anglers prepared to put up with the signal crayfish little seems to filter through to the angling press. I have spent countless hours on the Thames over the last five years in search its exclusive carp and within this time been fortunate to take two magnificent fish over 30lbs, a common of 31lbs 15oz along with a mirror of 30lbs 2oz, a fish that was taken just hours before our country flooded after the July storms, however I have never hooked a barbel. The Thames is a truly magical river one that if I had to make choice, would spend the rest of my life on, and at the moment many of its reaches are free. For the foreign angler thinking of coming over for a trail it might well be a good starting point albeit hard and I would make sure you obtain some sound advice on location before even contemplating.

Moving on from two such diverse rivers its time to discuss my favourite river the Loddon. Very little has been written about this moody river until the last few months but regarding specimen barbel its one of England’s best-kept secrets. This river, another Thames Tributary is relatively small and quite contrast to the Kennet that flows nearby. The Loddon in length is slightly over 45km and can be extremely contrasting from one stretch to another, but one that is common is that the river seems always to carry some colour even during summer and the average depth is deeper than that of what an ideal English barbel river should be. Although my river record of 16lbs 10oz still stands, I’m one hundred percent sure that a fish of 19lbs 2oz came from the stretch I concentrated on last winter. This somewhat huge discrepancy also goes to show just what angling in the UK is like, as barbel angling seems to carry a lot of secrecy with it and many anglers keep things very close to their chests. I believe that the UK record list is just a guide line to what the country has to offer as I am one of many that if privileged again to catch a record would not bother to go through the tidiest, unnecessary paperwork to claim such a fish, sad but true! As far as I am aware the river record for the Loddon stands at 19lbs 15oz, a truly remarkable fish and one that only needs to be caught by an angler that goes public. Wait and see, you saw it first that the Loddon will be a water soon to make history!

Barbel fishing in England is now huge. It will probably never take over from the carp fishing in popularity but there are many dedicated anglers that continue to write articles that seem to make it look like there are as many barbel anglers as carp. The rivers surrounding me seem to be getting busier by the year and who knows where it will end. Its amazing that every week we are reading that a new river record has been broken with fish exceeding 14lbs and from rivers that l have never heard off, tiny ones like the Wey! Only two rivers have produced barbel over 20lbs, the Wensum and Ouse but without a doubt we now have at least half a dozen that are capable of producing a barbel in excess of the 21lbs 1oz national record.

Before coming over to this country thinking that the fishing is easy you really need to ask yourself what you want, quantity or quality? Some rivers like the Severn offer fantastic fishing with fish plentiful in the going swims but a double would be classified as a real result. If you want a really big fish then you could spend a week on the Thames, Loddon, Stour or Avon without a bite, the rivers are that diverse over here.

My approach regarding tactics and bait on the Loddon is based around keeping everything as simple as possible along with staying extremely mobile. The stretches of Loddon I fish seem to be deeper and slower than what’s regarded as perfect barbel territory and during the winter you won’t be able to see the bottom so fish spotting is out of the question. Many rivers, which allow fish to be visibly located, lend themselves to the ‘bait and wait’ tactic which incorporates lots of hemp and maggots to be steadily introduced to a swim creating competitive feeding between the fish. Once this competitive feeding is at its peak the angler casts and extracts as many fish as possible from the swim before they wise up and spook. This tactic is extremely effective in cold clear water conditions but in coloured water or on a river such as the Loddon it is virtually a non-starter. Unable to locate fish by sight the best way to get to know a river is to keep mobile, visiting as many swims as possible. Fish each swim for forty minutes and then move on. If a fish is caught or you get indications that fish are present then note them down and visit either later if you fail to catch or another day. By moving around you soon create a picture of fish producing areas and after a while your knowledge will allow you to extract the best from a stretch.

The above swim rotation system has proved extremely successful over the past few years on the Loddon and is one that can be adopted on other larger rivers. This mobile approach has helped me land at least, twenty doubles this winter including fish of 15lbs 5oz and 16lbs 1oz.”