Current speed v Average weight!

[Terry Simner]

Ok, here's a hypothesis:
Rapids/shallow fast waters are often populated by a relatively high number of barbel in low/clear/summer conditions. But the average size of these barbel will be lower than that river's (caught) average.
From this, in low/clear/summer conditions...
If you're looking to improve your PB then its best to avoid fishing rapids, and maybe fish the deeper water below rapids, or other medium to deep water.

Discuss....

PS... I KNOW there are exceptions to every rule/hypothesis!!

 

[Neil Smart]

Possibly the reason for this Terry is the smaller males are shoaling up ''on the pull''?

 

[Paul Hayes]

Safety in numbers. Smaller fish will shoal it's self preservation. That's my theory anyway.

 

[Dan Whitelock]

Bigger fish are lazy maybe? I know that I do very little exercise and I consider myself a large specimen. I say lazy, I mean not deliberately lazy, like they make a calculated decision (Barbel are no where near that clever!) but it's a natural result of being in the slower water? I do know of some very, very big Ouse fish that were caught last season in stretches that you'd think Tench/Bream before Barbel.

I must admit I do tend to fish the slower, deeper areas rather than streamy shallows and have caught bigger fish in such reaches. Saying that though they also have a large volume of water flowing through with a decent bit of flow so it's maybe not so black and white?

Great thread though I like it!

 

[Paul Hayes]

On a stretch I regularly fish the upstream pegs are on shallower water with quite a bit of gravel. This stretch throws up a lot of fish between 2 and 6 lbs. Further downstream bigger fish are caught. It's not as prolific but certainly better quality.

 

[Paul Collins]

One of my club waters has a backwater attached to the river, no appreciable flow at all, it has never been stocked and has a large population of Tench, quite a few stray Carp have taken up residence and it has a healthy population of Barbel. The Barbel in the river are mostly 2-3lb with the occasional larger fish, in the backwater they average close to 7lb.

 

[John Walker]

all barbel and carp love to feel water moving over their backs, obviously on very shallow stretches the bigger barbel cannot comfortably get to these areas hence size difference, once the river rises then it can be a very different situation