John, some good points there! Perhaps my judgement is somewhat clouded for my love of Barbel and my distaste for commercial ponds! I would like to pick up on a few of your points though!

Quote:

“Without commercials there would be less water to fish. Without commercials many of your barbel rivers would be lined with matchmen every weekend.”

This is a very true statement and actually if commercials keep matchmen off the river then in my eyes perhaps they are a good thing! I remember some years ago fishing the Severn at Tewkesbury after there had been a match that weekend and having to remove small hooks and light line from two Barbel that my friend and I had caught I’m not saying it was definitely the match but highly likely!!

Quote:

“Try that with carp, another fish that is really an alien to the UK's stillwaters.”

Yes defiantly an alien species but alien to the fact that they were introduced into the UK by Monks in monasteries for food some 500 years ago in ponds known as stews and I sure by now Carp have acclimatised themselves to this type of environment be it right or wrong! I also understand you point about all other species of fish being stocked Sturgoen, catfish etc...so why not Barbel, I don’t really agree with these being stocked into commercial ponds either and it is probably why we have these species now in our rivers, flooding etc.... Is this a good or bad thing who knows I’m not sure, Zander were introduced and don’t seem to upset the balance of our rivers so who knows??

Another quote that I forgot to put on my original post taken from the Barbel Society Website is:

18. Thousands of small barbel have entered Trimpley reservoir via an inlet from the River Severn yet Trimpley is not full of large barbel ! If only 10% of them had entered a suitable habitat there would have been a barbel explosion.

What are your thoughts on this??

__________________
Silverlake Technology
Shropshire Foods
Facebook Silverlake Technology
Facebook Shropshire Foods

Yes carp, although an "invader", have invaded environments to which there were well suited. A long time ago, agreed. But there are those who, given free rein would have them all removed.


Zander have changed the balance in the rivers to an extent. Rivers can support so many fish, decided by the amount food that the river itself provides. Those fish then support an amount of predators. The number of zander in, say, the Severn, will undoubtedly have reduced the tonnage of pike/perch/eels present. Swings and roundabouts.

I read about the reservoir influx of barbel. (also in the barbel website) Don't know too much about it so difficult to be positive about anything. Who counted the "thousands"? How many went back? Have any of them grown? Is the place fished, and therefore fed heavily? How much do they really know about this incident? I remain a little sceptical of this one. It seems to be not the whole truth. Information missing that matters.


A couple of comments I found on websites:




There is a gravel pit near me that runs alongside the Swale & has a 'natural' stock of Barbel from floods. These fish are in superb condition & I would think probably offer the best chance of a double for local anglers.

Whether they're breeding or not I couldn't say, but I can say they are thriving, being big heavyset brightly conditioned specimens.


And

And if you think barbel dont spawn in stillwater go down to Cudmore lakes in staffordshire

At cudmore there are no recent stockings of barbel. but there are still a load of tiddly ones in there bred from the original stock.



I don't know how accurate these statements are, but they are food for some thought.

Oh and.....

study of barbel in the Trimpley Reservoir, England, concluded that barbel grow well in stillwater environments compared with the nearby River Severn (Davies ...


I was unable to access the full article...needed a subscription.

Originally Posted by thesaint999

What about the wensum, barbel have been stocked into the river and they cant sustain themselves in the river for whatever reason, then they shouldnt be in there same with stillwaters , if the habitat is not correct dont put em in.

The reason being mankind has wrecked the Wensum. One of our rivers that always had a natural stock of barbel ruined by abstraction, flood defence work etc etc. The work NACA has done has helped restore this fantastic river and should be commended. For years the EA denied them the stock fish - while selling them left right and centre to commercial fisheries! How wrong is that!

Like Glenn, i won't fish commercial waters that stock them, then again, i don't fish commercial waters full stop! I can't stand them to be honest!

The trend for stocking barbel started because the commercial angler wanted an alternative to the carpy boredom - what's wrong with tench? No - they see these beautifull big barbel from a wild river and realise thats what they want. Today's society wants everything on a plate so rather than actually take the time and effort to learn the techniques and watercraft skills to catch these fantastic creatures they just buy them and shove them in their muddy puddle so they can have a bit of the action too! Shamefull.

I know i'm barking up the wrong tree here as all you guys that go out and fish for barbel on your local rivers know what i'm on about - it stinks!

Many years ago I was a member of a club that stocked a mature ex-sandpit with several river species, these included barbel, chub and grayling. The barbel were caught on a fairly regular basis for a few years, as were the grayling, the chub thrived and grew to 7lbs+ but the other 2 species eventually seemed to disappear.
I totally disagree with the stocking of barbel into stillwaters, though I know it's been going on for years, there was a complex of pits in the north London area, Lea Valley? back in the 70's that had doubles in.

Barbel Seeker, some common ground I agree with you I don’t fish commercial fisheries full stop either although as “JayZS” says it keeps the matchmen of the Barbel rivers so I suppose this is a good thing!! I agree my opinion is we live in a fast food society people don’t want to work for things they want it now they don’t want to wait for it. It took me several years to work towards my double figure Barbel why is it that people seem to be able to go to a pond and be able to get one almost instantly no skill involved whatsoever indeed it is shamefull!!

__________________
Silverlake Technology
Shropshire Foods
Facebook Silverlake Technology
Facebook Shropshire Foods

Any matchman worth his salt would not fish a line so light he would get cleaned out, the matchmen who fish the rivers know the rivers better than anyone and how to tackle them, I would suggest that its holidaymakers or occasional anglers that leave light lines and hooks in fish. We as anglers should all learn to get along for the sake of our sport , I would say 70% of angling innovation comes from this sector, united we stand divided we fall.

Originally Posted by thesaint999

Any matchman worth his salt would not fish a line so light he would get cleaned out, the matchmen who fish the rivers know the rivers better than anyone and how to tackle them, I would suggest that its holidaymakers or occasional anglers that leave light lines and hooks in fish. We as anglers should all learn to get along for the sake of our sport , I would say 70% of angling innovation comes from this sector, united we stand divided we fall.

Tell that to Dick Clegg when he got whooped 3:0 by John Wilson, before that Tom Sallis beaten by Richard Walker. A good friend of mine has won fishomania, fished the champion of champions recently - he's never taken me on with a big cash bet on our local river!

I didn't say who was better at any point, putting one against the other is just daft for to many reasons , john Wilson is a top angler but I couldn't see him scatting around for a few ounces on the canal in December, to back bite each other is madness match men, speccy boys, game fisherman, bivvy boys all trying to fish the same bit of water and can't do it in harmony. The anti fishing and canoeists love all this dis-Harmony. The people we should all worry about is the people who abuse our sport and leave all there s..t behind we should be focusing on .

The main difference between a match angler and a speci angler is that the matchman wouldn't think twice about shoving a big barbel or carp in a keepnet if he/she thought they would win money from it.

The speci angler would admire, photograph and return - never contemplating un-necassary retention by any means.

what are carp sacks used for?