I have not really fished for Barbel properly, apart from a few sessions on the Trent in the 1990's which always provided me with smallish Chub! I used to ledger luncheon meat cubes below Stoke Bardolph weir at night, back in the day!
I do own a couple of Diawa Twilight rods & 2 x Shimano 4000 series reels + 2 x Centrepin reels. I got 'snapped off' a couple of years back by a fish that took a halibut pellet on a hair rig... it was odd but initially it felt like a small Chub. After a few seconds the weight REALLY stacked on & a large heavy fish was slowly swimming up stream with me 'hanging on' to it! The drag was not set-up properly & I could not give it line quickly enough & it took my 10lb hooklink etc.... It has crossed my mind that a double figure Pike may have taken the original small fish, it was very exciting, disappointing too & I will never know for sure what happened?
I was a member on BFW for a time, it seems like that site is now archived but this seems a good alternative forum..
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