Hi there, new poster but as I have caught on the avon and the severn (so have some limited experience of barbel) but heard that the rother near rye was stocked with barbel years ago. Any come out ???

Not sure if it helps, but I was fishing on the Itchen just before Xmas and was chatting to a chap from your neck of the woods who fishes the Arun and Rother. He made a comment about the Chub, Roach and odd Barbel coming out of the Itchen, but he also added that nothing like that was coming out of the Arun and Rother.

Cheers, Nick

Okay cheers for that. I now assume the nearest barbel to me will be in the medway then.

I've heard rumours of the biggest barbel of the year coming out of the rother although some people say it was the Arun. Pioneer mate!!!

Rother record is reputedly 15lb 3oz, caught in 2007. I'd expect there to be the odd one or two about unless the river has suffered a terrible pollution incident.

Thats the trouble when you get same names for rivers and the press dont say which county. Anyway I know a few chub anglers go fishing in the east sussex rother and none of them have seena barbel come out. Thats why I asked on here if any travelling anglers had heard anything

Rother(sussex) record has gone again this week @ 16lb 12oz
Its on BFW homepage

A few of the south eastern rivers have been stocked with barbel over the last 20 or so years,in sussex the ouse, rother and arun all contain barbel and in kent the stour and obviously the medway too. These fish are in many cases not thriving and maybe not even breeding to sustain their populations. When say,250 barbel are put in as fingerlings you are probably lucky if 15 survive as the fingerlings are subject to predation from pike and cormorants amongst other things ,however the small number that survive can grow into big fish. These rivers arent barbel rivers like the wye ,trent or severn or teme but are rivers that contain a few barbel. As you can imagine,if for arguements sake the river is 50 miles long and there are just a few barbel in the river then they really do take some finding!!

Thats the trouble "finding them". Thats why I have ben trying a few trips to the royalty and to Arley on the severn. At least you know there are good numbers in these sections.

Originally Posted by reel fisher

Thats the trouble "finding them". Thats why I have ben trying a few trips to the royalty and to Arley on the severn. At least you know there are good numbers in these sections.

At least you HOPE there are good numbers in these sections

Cheers, Nick