Martyn White | Thursday, 24 April 2025
I've been back out at the barbel this week and it has continued to be good. We're coming up to a week of public holidays that usually marks a break in my fishing and a switch to float tubing. This year I might stick with the barbel a bit longer.
As I said last week, I don't fish specifically for barbel that much. Usually I'll be out carping and maybe catch a couple, but I do enjoy barbel and always think I should spend more time on them. They're a great target. I'm no expert, but at the same time they're pretty straight forward and I rarely fail to catch them when I try. Find them and trundle a worm or caddis below them, and you'll probably catch. Of course there's a bit more nuance than that, but it's the general idea.
As far as gear goes, you're bound to have something that will do. I often think about what the ideal tool for the job would be. I've seen stuff online with people recommending anything from a 9'6" #6 to a 10' #8.. My feeling is something longer for beefed up, pre-mono rig Czech style nymphing, that also isn't an unpleasant casting tool when longer presentations or baitfish patterns are necessary. Recently I've found myself thinking about an old loch/single hand salmon rod I had 25 years ago; a 10'6" #8 Shakespeare, I can't remember the model but that's irrelevant anyway. I might get something similar to see if I'm right. I'm pretty sure I am, I just need to prove it. And in no way is this a spurious excuse for a new rod.
Any reel will do, a floating line and a straight 12lb leader, maybe 15lb if you're fishing somewhere snaggy. You might want to tie some flies, but there's no need for specialist hooks, despite what some say; we're not using 1.5lb TC rods, 30lb braid and 2oz of lead to keep a lump of spam on the bottom. A B175 or similar is plenty of hook for barbel on fly-the last year or so I've been really liking the FM grab gape heavy size 8 as a barbless option, I just wish they made a 6 or 4.
For ages I thought there were 2 species of Japanese barbel having caught fish in the same river that were markedly different from each other in colouration and morphology. It was only recently that I discovered the other species are invasive European barbel or hybrids(POD). Which explains why the natives are in pretty much every system around here while the others are only in some parts of some rivers. The Tama River for example has a dam that is apparently impassible to the barbel, I've never caught one of the invasive/hybrids above it. Perhaps unsurprisingly the native/invasive hybrids are better gamefish. Behaviourally they are very similar and can be caught in much the same way as the natives but they are much better fighters. But Japanese barbel can also be more predatory than their European counterparts, pretty aggressive and will eat quite large streamers. I know that in Spain there are similar behaviours but I've never seen any pictures of them being caught on big BTDs intended for other species, something that happens pretty regularly here.
If you haven't tried them, I definitely recommend it. Especially in summer when it's too warm to safely fish for trout.