hello from a romanian barbel angler

[Mihai Tomescu]

hi guys, my name is Mihai (Mike) and I am from Romania. I love fishing for barbel and carp and will do it in all wether conditions.
I've read about this site on FishingMagic and I'm looking to learn new tricks about barbel fishing on here.
So, I hope I'm welcome here and wish you all good fishing.

[tony byrne]

Hello Mihai and welcome to the forum i too like Barbel fishing and most fish that swim in my local rivers.If you wish to compare fishing methods rigs please feel free to do so tight lines(Tony)

[Mihai Tomescu]

hi, thank you for the welcoming message.
when it comes to rigs for barbel I like to keep things simple. I mean I don't overcomplicate myself with the latest super-rig that I've just read about in the last issue of a magazine.
my barbel rigs are: a size 6-10Drennan Super Specialist Barbel hook, a Suffix fluorocarbon hooklink in 6-8lb BS, and mainline is P-Line Fluoroclear in 10lb BS.
I rearly use hair rigs, but that's becouse I don't use boilies very often.
maggots, luncheon meat, worms, something like Pepperami, pastes and we have a traditional bait made from maze meal boiled and stired in water and after it turnes into a paste we add 1/2lb of chease (the smellier the better) and we mix it like the boilie dough. after that we put it in a nylon sock and we boil it again for 15-30 mins. after it cools down we take it out from the sock and cut it in half inch to 1 inch cubes.

[tony byrne]

Hi Mihai greeting from Liverpool most of my Barbel fishing is done with a simple free running open end drennan swim feeders which i load with 6mm hallibut pellets and plug the ends of the feeder with fishmeal groundbait.I mostly hair rig my baits on size 6 or 8 hooks baits are hallibut pellets,boillies meat and pastes the paste i wrap around boillies.

[Paul Hiom]

Hello Mihai,

In the UK we have a closed season (March 15 to June 15) where we cant fish the rivers, so you may find it a bit quiet on here until the season starts again. Also, this forum does not have many members at present, i myself havent looked in for a couple of months. But if you have any questions about how we fish for barbel in the UK, i'm sure someone will be around to answer. How is the barbel fishing in Romania, is it the same species (lat-barbus, barbus), how big do the barbel grow? Can you fish for barbel at this time of year?

Paul

[Mihai Tomescu]

hi Paul.
Our close seasson starts at 12 April and ends at 15 June.
The specie is the same (barbus barbus).
They grow pretty big, I've witnessed a fish of 6kg(15lbs I thinck).
The problem that I'm dealing with at the moment is that here not manny anglers release the fish they chatch.
Me & my friends do, but I don't think it's enough.
We try to teatch them that the future of our beautyfull sport is to release as manny fish, I would prefer all, so year after year we could chatch more,bigger&healthier barbel.
One question I would like to ask: my river is most of the year murky, becouse 2 miles up-river is a gravel extraction facility & the water is very colored. Now my question is should I use baits that smell or is it ok with naturals like maggots, worms? I'm talking about springtime.
This year I'm going to try to fish more with boilies & pellets becose I think that the fish will be bigger. Well, at least I think so.
Tight lines & happy fishing to you all.(on stillwaters)
Mihai!

[John Costello]

Hi Mihai
Welcome, good to hear about barbel fishing in other countries and also good to hear that some anglers are returning fish, they dont get to grow so big if everyone kills all the fish.
In coloured water i would always favour smelly baits and maggots work better in clear water but worms work in coloured water. To a fish worms are very smelly, just that we cant smell them.
If you are trying to catch the bigger fish amongst lots of small ones trying cutting your maize/cheese dough mix into 4 inch (10cm!!!) cubes. The smaller fish cant get it in their mouths. It is a method used on the rivers Severn and Teme by anglers looking to catch the bigger fish.
Paul Hiom knows more about the method and has had more success on this method than I so I will not say more
John

[Mihai Tomescu]

Hi John, thanks for the tip. Here, the cheese works best for barbel. I understand that in UK cheesepaste is better for chub.
As for returning the fish back to their domaine, I think they are to beautyfull to kill. And to me killing a beautyfull creature such as barbel or carp is a sacrileige.
Hope you will excuse me if my english is bad.
Tight lines!
Mihai.

[Paul Hiom]

Mihai,

John is right sometimes bigger baits deter smaller fish, but occasionally they just wittle the bait down until its small enough to get into their mouths, so it is better to get a harder consistency in your paste or use a tougher bait. Cheese is not so popular these days in the UK, but i'm sure it will still work if people use it more. Its food after all and will send out all the normal food signals. Milk proteins and derivatives are often used in a lot of the boiles that are available usually in conjunction with fish meal, and cheese is obviously made from milk so the same protein types should attract. Some of us use huge lumps of spam (luncheon meat) sometimes up to half of a 300g or 340g tin and it certainly catches its fair share of big barbel on the rivers that i have fished. Got to be worth a try on your coloured up river. Paul

[Mihai Tomescu]

Hi Paul,
My best results so far have been on plain cheese & boilies. I make my boilies from S&O base mix(SBS) or if I want some high-atract boilies, I go for a 50/50 basemix with twice the amount of Frankfurter Saussege flavour. Now I want to try something new; I made some boiles from a pound of cheesepaste and I have high hopes with it. They realy stink.
Another bait that worked -but only in the summer- is spiced luncheon meat. Actually curry was the only spice, but it worked well. The thing that I can't understand is that the barbel didn't took the bigger cubes of luncheon meat. The biggest that I've cought on is 1inch cubes. But they take without problem the ones of half inch to one inch. And I'm not talking of small fish, but fish in the 5 to 8lb bracket. I don't know why they don't want to take anithing bigger. I can only gues that it is becouse everybody uses small baits like sweetcorn, maggots,small cubes of cheese, worms, small boilies- up to 14mm- and small balls of pastes.
Cheers, Mihai!

[John Costello]

Curried luncheon meat is a very good bait but I am surprised it has only worked for you in the summer. In England it is a popular bait in the winter in flood water when the rivers are coloured by rain water. In general luncheon meat works best in either coloured water or after dark. Do you fish at night? Barbel are often more scared of luncheon meat in the daytime in this country but after dark or in coloured water it is very good. Also barbel are more scared of big baits in the daytime or in clear water so maybe that is why you have had little success with larger baits

[Mihai Tomescu]

Hi John,
Yes I fish at night but only in the summer and autum. This is becouse in winter the barbel go down the river into a big reservoir where they spend the winter becouse the river get iced for manny miles.
Here luncheon meat is not used as it is in UK. Me and 2 other friends have introduced it to the rivers ( only 3 rivers) two years ago and the fish have accept it pretty well.
Here most people use a paste of maize meal on the hook and as groundbait. Other baits used largely are maggots and worms.
Last year we had the best results with curryed luncheon meat.
I was thinking of trying boilies this year, but my friends convinced me that if is not broken don't fix it.
What I would realy like to try this year is pellets. I really want to see the fishes reaction to a new bait.

[Mihai Tomescu]

Hi guys,
Yesterday I was barbel fishing. I couldn't find them. I think they hedded to the spawning places.
But the crucians were a plague. The river is full of them. Every cast they were chopping the luncheon meat like mad. Only 2 small chub have played ball, but pretty soon (12 april is the start of the close season here) we will cry even for them to come to our baits, but we'll have to contend ourself just with stillwaters.
Roll on June 15th.
Tight lines guys.