If your idea of a change barbel bait is three grains of sweetcorn instead of two, then you’re in for a shock. In this first of a two-part article Paddy Webb explains how he came to catch big barbel in a far-from-traditional way…

I’m no barbel expert but I am an observant, open-minded angler. I am also aware of the fallibility of memory so I always keep notes whilst fishing, and then I can make reasonably valid comparisons of the relative effectiveness of methods I employ. It helped me a great deal whilst I was a hopelessly obsessed carp angler, and what follows is what’s cropped up from observations and note-keeping whilst barbel fishing. 

 Many ‘traditional’ barbel specialists regard the crossover of carp baits and methods into barbel fishing with distaste. If that’s you, I suggest that you flick on to the next article. This is really going to wind you up, as it is my experience that using boilies for barbel rather than conventional baits results in a higher average size of fish caught.
 It’s odd really because at first in my short barbel-angling career I was quite happy using sweetcorn, as advocated by my mentor, a very experienced barbel angler from Builth Wells called Peter Smith. I came into barbel fishing after getting on for 12 years of fishing for nothing but carp, so it was something of a joy to use a simple bait like sweetcorn rather than a boilie, and mount it straight on the hook rather than on a hair rig. I used corn to catch my first ever barbel from the Swale in July 1995, and my first double from the Wye in August of the same year. If the latter sounds a bit jammy, let me tell you that I was taken fishing on the Wye by Peter and the capture was down to him putting me in the right spot!

I caught plenty of barbel on sweetcorn, and meat, including three more Wye doubles to 11lb 11oz over the next three years, and at first I couldn’t see the need for change. However, the Swale has always been a very popular barbel river and after a brief early season flurry, catches on simple everyday baits like sweetcorn and meat began to dwindle, even at night. Whilst I love being by water, particularly at night, and I have a full appreciation of the flora and fauna around me, I go barbel fishing primarily to catch barbel. If it wasn’t happening on the baits I’d been using then I’d have to change bait. 

OK, going finer is also an option, but I’d caught plenty of Swale barbel sporting small hooks and varying lengths of fine line and I didn’t want to add to their woes. Stef Horak may be able to do it, but I was faced with hard evidence that most of us aren’t capable of his artistry with size 20 hooks to 1lb line. I hate leaving tackle in fish so going finer just to get bites is not an option for me. As I said, I aim to catch barbel and that demands a factor of safety in the tackle I use.
 I had an ex-match angler friend, Dave, who got into barbel fishing at the same time as me, and his solution to the pressured Swale barbel was to feeder-fish casters and hemp in combination. I’ve got to acknowledge that it’s a tried and trusted tactic that works a treat. I’d be straight on it (or maggots in bulk) if I was restricted to day-only fishing – happily I’ve a number of venues where I can night fish! The drawback is its expense compared to using bulk tins of corn. I’ve got a family to maintain, and the use of such comparatively expensive baits would have severely cut the number of times I’d be able to go fishing. 

In 1996 Mainline Baits partner Kev Knight rang, wondering what had happened to the steady flow of carp being reported by me. I told him I was mainly barbel fishing at the time. He asked me what I was catching on and laughed when I said sweetcorn. He also told me that he was supplying Grange boilies and paste to several barbel anglers who were using it to great effect on the Ouse and Kennet; indeed it has accounted for at least one of the British records caught from the Great Ouse.

The last bait I’d used as a carp-only angler was a frozen ready-made boilie called the Grange CSL Mix, made by Essex firm Mainline Baits. It appeared in 1994 and was completely different to the fishmeal-based boilies that were in almost universal use then, and when I first used it in 1995, I had my best year’s carp fishing ever. The name of the bait derives from Little Grange, the carp fishery where it was first tried out, and corn steep liquor, which is the main liquid additive in the boilie mix. Corn steep liquor is a natural food by-product that is rich in free amino acids, and amino acids have long been known to be attractive to a number of fish species. In my first year of using Grange boilies, I also caught 2lb-plus roach and rudd – on carp gear! I’ve since caught double-figure bream and a personal best tench on Grange boilies, again on carp gear. 

Well, I had to try it out and did so on a straight-from-work overnighter to the Swale in August 1996. I went through my usual routine of baiting two spots with a baitdropper on my arrival, only this time the downstream spot had fifteen or so 8mm Grange boilies rather than bits of meat in each dropper of hempseed. I tackled up, retired to the car to cook a meal and have a cuppa, and returned to the gratifying sight of barbel flashing on both baited spots.

Freshly thawed Grange boilies are comparatively soft, but the ones I had were air-dried to preserve them and were so hard I had no choice but to attach the hookbait on a hair rig. I cast in – and the rod was nearly wrenched from my hand as I put it on the rest! The usual tense, you’re-not-getting-in-those-far-bank-trees struggle ensued and eventually I netted a torpedo-like 9lb barbel, which remains my second biggest from that River to this day. I went on to catch three barbel to 7lb on corn that night, and an 8½-pounder on the boilies... 

Things eventually got busier on the Red Lion stretch of the Wye to which Peter Smith had introduced me, and with which I had fallen in love. Apart from the occasional salmon angler, it was deserted – a barbel angler’s paradise. Not long afterwards, John Bailey’s barbel fishing courses started on the stretch. These popular and regular events inevitably introduced a large number of newcomers, many of whom fell in love with the place just as I had! I can’t fault ’em for that, but it’s beyond me how John can write articles bemoaning angling pressure on barbel, when he’s done as much as anyone to put the Red Lion barbel under pressure. 

When the pressure came on the Wye and we’d struggled for a while with conventional baits, Dave and I had no hesitation in starting the 1999 season using Grange boilies. Dave went down there first and caught twenty-one barbel in two nights topped by an immense new personal best of 13lb 5oz, just a couple of ounces under the venue record at the time. He’d caught most of his fish on corn, but the big one had come to the boilies, as had a couple of his other larger fish. As had happened on the Swale, the very first Grange boilie I cast into the Wye was taken on the drop! This was a week or so after Dave’s catch and in a swim at least two miles downstream. The fish was estimated at 8lb-plus and returned immediately. 

A bit of a digression here, but a worthwhile one I hope. I have noticed that barbel I’ve weighed take longer to recover and swim away than fish I’ve merely unhooked and returned immediately, and barbel I’ve weighed and photographed take even longer. The upshot is that I don’t weigh a barbel unless I think it’s a significant weight, and I keep them in the landing net in the water until I’ve got the scales, sling and camera ready. What’s a significant weight to you will be different to mine (and that varies from river to river), but you get my point. I also use an unhooking mat if I take them out of the water.

Anyway, I caught more fish on corn than boilies once again, but the bigger ones generally came to the boilies, including a new personal best of 11lb 15oz at dusk on the second evening of my trip. Dave and I were obviously delighted with our early success, and as the season progressed and catches on corn decreased, catches on the boilies were maintained.

Feeding the swim efficiently was the only problem I encountered. At one time I was happy to introduce bait from a large baitdropper, and I still would on a small river where the dropper can be lowered in. However, on a large river like the Wye where I was sometimes casting 20 or 30 yards to a particular spot, the splash of a large dropper seems to be counterproductive. I’d varied my methods between using a large baitdropper and building the swim up by repeated casting of a swimfeeder, and I’d monitored my results as usual. It turned out that in swims where I was casting any distance I consistently caught more fish by building up the swim with a swimfeeder, so that was the means of introduction I’d come to prefer. 

However, the boilies didn’t lend themselves to introduction in a feeder, often jamming up. I’d tried using PVA stringers, but the air-dried boilies I was using were so hard they needed drilling before I could mount them on PVA string – too time-consuming. Luckily, I had another trick up my sleeve from my carp fishing days, and I was sure it would work. Actually, it’s a crossover from match fishing into carp fishing and it’s generally referred to as the Method.

I could be wrong but I believe it acquired it’s status as the match-winning method on those carp puddles that sprang up from nowhere. Pack a big ball of goodie-laced groundbait around a feeder and have a hookbait on a very short hooklink. Match anglers developed new groundbaits and pastes to use, and tackle specifically for what became the Method. It crossed over into specialist carp fishing some time in the nineties, becoming well used on some venues and totally neglected on others. It was and still is generally regarded as a small fish tactic by most carp anglers. Those of us who recognised its potential and versatility, and bothered to get to know how to use it, know better!

Although groundbait mixes were the first things to get packed onto a feeder, I was introduced early on to an incredibly simple and highly effective alternative: scalded trout pellets. Actually, you don’t even need boiling water, it just makes the process of breaking the pellets down into a mouldable paste a bit quicker. After starting as a trial on one rod, the Method quickly became my preferred carp fishing tactic at all times of year – it’s so versatile. Although trout pellets are quite effective on their own, you can add other items, such as chopped boilies, hempseed, maize, etc. I settled on a very effective mix of pellets, crushed boilies and hempseed, using just enough pellets to make a paste of the correct consistency with the water the hempseed was cooked in.

I’d quickly cottoned on to the fact the different pellets produce pastes with different properties. Some end up as a very stodgy paste that sticks to the lead and stays there. Others are more crumbly and the paste balls break down at various rates. One of the advantages of having the hempseed in the mix was that the pellets draw moisture from the seeds, leaving air pockets in some. Those seeds help to break the paste ball up as they float away, and they give an added dimension of attraction simply by moving.

 Mainline Baits also produce a range of Response Pellets, which are spray-dried with attractors to match those present in their boilie range. I made up a Method mix using their CSL-sprayed Response Pellets and crushed Grange boilies with hempseed as above, and tested a ball in the edge. Just five minutes later what had apparently been a ball of paste had completely broken up into a little pile of hempseed, pellets and boilie particles! Response Pellets erode a little when mixing, but the retain their shape and merely go spongy as they soak up the moisture. The mix compresses into a ball that stays around the lead down to at least 15m depth (I’ve tested it abroad). Then the pellets resume their shape and the whole lot falls from the lead within 10 minutes. You’ll notice that I put “around the lead” and “from the lead” there. I’d already found out that you can mould these pastes around any lead and you don’t need a specially made feeder. 

Incidentally, having read Simon Crow’s piece in the last issue, I thought you ought to know that bream absolutely are a total nightmare when trying to carp fish with the Method. Those double-figure bream I mentioned earlier were all caught on Grange boilies fished with the above Method mix. One morning I had six bream between 10lb 2oz and 11lb 7oz in about two hours. Definitely a Method with nuisance value!
 So that was the Method mix that I took down to use with the Grange boilies on my second trip of the year to the Wye. I mounted a 14mm boilie on a size 8 hook, knotless-knotted to an eight-inch hooklink with whatever size flat in-line pear lead was needed to hold bottom, usually 1½-2½oz. I built the swim up by casting and each time I moulded about an ounce of mix around the lead and pushed two whole boilies into the ball. 

The first night produced a brace of 10¼-pounders, both on the Method-fished boilies – nothing on the sweetcorn. The second night produced half a dozen fish from 6-8lb, four on the boilies. As the year went on, the results on the Method-fished boilies continued to out-strip the sweetcorn (or any other bait we cared to use for that matter). The addition of the Method mix into the equation had also resulted in more action on boilies to the point that they produced the same sort of numbers of fish as I’d ever caught on corn. By the end of the summer I’d caught more doubles than ever before, all but one on boilies. Note that’s doubles plural, not the one a summer I’d had before using boilies!

I’d had my eye on the tidal Trent for a few years and now I felt confident I had a winning method to take on to that very big water. Next time you’ll find out how I got on. 

This article was first published in Coarse Angling Today October 2001