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HNV baits for Barbel.

I thought John W. made an interesting point regarding fish spooking off a bait. Often or not we don't see it, and there's no reason why they don't spook from any well used bait besides spam.
When I was on my second annual trip to the Royalty in '78 my party of mates shared the guesthouse with a like minded bunch of lads from Reading,....If any are on this forum, it was the pi**heads from Surrey with the exploding fags and matches!....
Whereas we were on a learning curve, these guys had done it all before. Whilst watching the motionless rodtip for hours on the Trammels I soon realised that fishing a cube of meat in bright sunlight on open gravel was not as productive as wading out in the river and trotting it through the channels between the streamer weed, as was being demonstrated with great skill [ and a little winding up] by the Reading guys who were fishing down to the Pipebridge just downstream!!
Lesson one,..fish a moving bait if poss.!

Some years ago I was chub fishing on the Wey on a cold late November morning.
As I carefully moved along the river I noticed a barbel sitting out on the gravel just off the bank weighing around the 8lb mark. Being very careful not to spook it I tore off a small piece of meat and flicked it out upstream. The offering settled about a foot in front of the fish,..perfect I thought,..but after a delay of no more than 10 seconds the barbel bolted out of the swim so quickly it could have been poked with a stick!
It had obviously had a bad experience with a similar bait not long before I guess,...but this must happen with other baits,..perhaps it does have a little to do with the law of averages in that a meat offering very often comes with a hook, whereas most other baits are accompanied by free offerings.
We've all coloured and flavoured luncheon meat at some stage of course, sometimes to disguise it being luncheon meat!
I tend to use an HNV paste rather than meat nowadays only because it gives me more options regarding flavours and colours that don't wash out too quickly.
 
Re previous comments on Ray Walton catching'' a few ''on Spam . He caught hundreds over a long period on the Royalty in all sorts of water visibility conditions . My view is that Spam worked for him because it was moving through the swim , the barbel did not have time to contemplate the bait as they would if it was lying in front of them on a static rig . It was a piece of food sailing by , they recognised it as such and grabbed it .It was the technique that caught the fish

In all seriousness I think SPAM works , particularly Garlic Spam for one reason only , it stinks and it attracts fish , end of ..
 
Very shrewd Mike,...I've just read the advertising slogan....

dave-taylor-albums-dropbox-picture5325-709spam3.jpg


:D:D:D
 
Seriously are we really to believe our own hype about baits, it's just a money making process for the bait companies, sure meat works, as do pellet maggots worms and bread, and the boilie, but there is nothing wrong with making our own baits with special ingredients if we think it will catch more, but what can we compare success with as far as one bait out fishing another/ Unless we do controlled experiments we can't, we are really just as good as the last barbel caught, and what bait was used.

But what I think I know is that meat is more durable and will entice a take when all else fails.
 
Two important factors are HOW a bait is fished, and just as importantly, having confidence in that bait which is a very underrated factor imo.
 
I think you are spot there Dave , certainly about your first point anyway ! I was reading an old article last night ,[ early 70's by Peter Stone ] . In the article Stone argued very convincingly that the most single influential apsect in Angling was the confidence of the angler whether it be in his baits , equipment or methods . I personally do not think that in the long term any particular bait is head and shoulders better than any other be it HNV or not . I think when HNV baits were pioneered by Fred and others they did prove very attractive to fish , perhaps more so than other traditional baits being used at the time . Howevewr in the medium to long term I believe this effect diminishes . With regard to Barbel as an experiment for three years[this was several years ago when I was more able to fish regularly ] I fished for barbel [with one or two exceptions ] solely using Garlic Spam , in all conditions and at all times of the year . The idea behind this was to compare results to the previous 3 years when I almost exclusively used pellets and pastes for barbel . Outcome ? Both are equally effective in attracting barbel . The spam does win hands down over pellets in a flood though . This isn't a scientific approach but to me it indicates that barbel will eat all baits , and secondly if I ' believe ' in the bait then it works . Don't ask me why / how . Discuss ....
 
Yes Mike, it is an interesting point. I suppose confidence in ones bait and methods must derive from previous successes and encourage a bit more patience and perseverance in some situations. Perhaps an angler's biggest hurdle on occasion is self doubt, when things just don't feel right which must come from previous experience, which I very quickly overcome by packing up and going to the pub!
 
I find the belief that an angler with confidence in what he is doing/using will catch more fish very disturbing, simply because (A) I know it is a fact. (B) I have no idea WHY it is so. And (C)...As a result of knowing that, I frequently don't have that confidence. But it does explain why I am a p*ss poor angler :D

I have heard various theories as to why it is true, including the standard "Because a confident angler fishes better",but I have seen that disproved many times. Whatever, the other old standby "if you could work out how to put confidence in a bottle you would be a rich man" is very true indeed :D

Cheers, Dave.
 
just had a bit of a reading on the spam, well i have been on the trent on notts stretch down from gunthrope bridge, and i use to fish spam, at the time i use to get it from super market , £1 a tin,
i buy 6 tins at a time go home chop up two tins buy hand into rought cuts and the other on done bait punch, so arrive at swim, i would throw in a mixture of the cut up meat into swim,
then set up rods and then do a fresh brew sit back with a smoke this would take 45 mins to an hour start fishing with feeder ground bait and meat in feeder, rough cut meat on hook, first rod would go ,while i was casting second rod in, great sport, best i had in a session is 26 barbel, average size 6/8 lb, and 3 barbel 9+ , they love the stuff, it does work, know you go back 3 days later and do the same as above you might only 2 barbel, ,
dont think they have moved far down the swim, but like us ,i do feel that like us to much of one food source at one go, is enough to put you off, they like a change of bait, all this is based on good conditions when fishing,
 
hold on a minute guys, i wasn,t disregarding spam as a bait just commenting on how it can blow at times, i can remember the days on the lee diversion when if you didnt use real spam you reduced your chance of catching barbel, tons of the stuff went in there then and yes ray walton fished it too there,
i have seen barbel bolt at the sight of a carpet of hemp on the kennet too
i have also seen the effect of putting elips or halips in a swim, on the wye on one particular swim myself, rayo and nantlu was fishing almost shoulder to shoulder, me on spam, ray and malc on elips,
i got outfished by at least 4 to one:eek:
i like to fish steamed boilies or chops very lightly steamed so theres a fast leakage from the bait and freebies and the texture is softer and different from
ordinary boilies, i also like using blobs of stiffened paste for same reason,
most barbel aint so wary as carp when hungry and once feeding will grab almost anything
 
John Walker said:
hold on a minute guys, i wasn,t disregarding spam as a bait just commenting on how it can blow at times, i can remember the days on the lee diversion when if you didnt use real spam you reduced your chance of catching barbel, tons of the stuff went in there then and yes ray walton fished it too there,
i have seen barbel bolt at the sight of a carpet of hemp on the kennet too
i have also seen the effect of putting elips or halips in a swim, on the wye on one particular swim myself, rayo and nantlu was fishing almost shoulder to shoulder, me on spam, ray and malc on elips,
i got outfished by at least 4 to one:eek:
i like to fish steamed boilies or chops very lightly steamed so theres a fast leakage from the bait and freebies and the texture is softer and different from
ordinary boilies, i also like using blobs of stiffened paste for same reason,
most barbel aint so wary as carp when hungry and once feeding will grab almost anything
Click to expand...

Some good tips there John, I also recall that Ray Walton did a piece on the effects that meat was having (allegedly) on the hormones of Barbel, something to do with growth hormones that were given to pigs that were passed through the food chain.
Looks like you got your enthusiasm back, not surprising since you are back on the Barbel rivers.:)
 
Neil, i aint ever lost the enthusiasm but after suffering a 21/2 hour heart attack and being left with a weak wall in one chamber, being told i had diabetes2, ending up with in addition a pulmonry problem, sleep apnea and having to breath oxygen 16 hours a day i figured i needed to just take things really gentle for a while lol, i can only walk very short distances before i am hanging on for oxygen
fishing apart from work has dominated my whole life since the age of about 5 or 6 and carp and barbel my main intersts for about 58/9 years now mostly on the thames or lea and in my early years all the north london parks, hampstead heath
and a few hard won and found secret waters for carp,
it wasnt until i found bfw late on in life that i began to meet more real barbel men than i knew existed lol, since that day my fishing has changed a bit, no more wanderingaround waters with just me shadow for company and once met nearly all the bfw guys have been really friendly and always ready to share a bit of knowhow:):)
 
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