Deadbaiting for barbel?

[markward]

During one of many crammed in end of season pike sessions the other day l was hoping to end the season with twenty from the kennet. No such luck but with 3 doubles to over 18lb l was indeed pleased. Two days later it was back again to see if the older sisters had turned up, and when my float slid away things looked good. But a pike wasn't the result but a 8lb barbel hooked fairly on the bottom treble after gulping down my sardine! Two more slide down stream bites occured without me connecting assuming they were also barbel. Now when l go barbel fishing l certainly dont use deadbaits but could this be the all singing all dancing barbel bait of the future? Both me a my fishing partner were a bit surprised to see this or is it a regular occurance?Thoughts

[Peter Sharpe]

There was a centre page feature in Angling Times a couple of years ago, showing someone catching barbel from the Tidal Trent on hair-rigged chunks of mackerel. I have tried this a couple of times without success, but I did manage to catch five carp this winter deliberately, using chunks as big as one inch by two inches. The funny thing was though, that it seemed to sort out carp that were smaller than average. It could just have been that the smaller ones were more active that week though.

[Chris Plumb]

Minnow deadbaits certainly catch barbel - especially early season. Graham E would know more - you still on this board Graham?

 

Chris

[Steve Burke]

Although I've caught a few barbel accidentally I've only once fished for them deliberately. That was at the tail end of a chub session on the Dorset Stour at Throop. I saw a barbel roll as the light began to fade. Casting a whitebait to it resulted in a very positive bite, and a few minutes later I was admiring an 8 pounder. Unfortunately, I couldn't stay any longer as no night fishing was allowed on this venue.

 

Further upriver where barbel were distinctly thin on the ground, I once hooked a very powerful fish that swam upstream in a flooded river despite my putting on the full pressure that the 8lb line would allow. Unfortunately it soon found a sunken tree, the reason for the heavy line. What was that fish? Not a pike by the feel of it, my guess at the time being a salmon. However, my fishing partner, Stewart Allum, landed a 10-14 barbel from nearby a few weeks later, and believes a big barbel was the most likely culprit.

 

Certainly if I were ever to go after barbel in the future my first offering would undoubtable be a dead fish, almost certainly whitebait.

 

As a matter of interest the list of species on which I've caught on whitebait is barbel, carp (over 100!), chub, eel, perch, pike, tench, brown trout, rainbow trout.