There are few more exhilarating angling experiences than hooking an angry, tackle-testing barbel!
They’re one of our hardest fighting species, but in the low and clear water conditions currently dogging most rivers, they can be very easily spooked. As a result, how you feed your swim will play a big part in deciding whether or not you’ll taste success.
Lashing in big handfuls regularly could make even a half-interested fish wary, plus, of course, there will be less chance of it taking your hookbait because of the glut of food on offer.
The answer is to adopt a more refined approach to get the barbel grubbing around with confidence.
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Build their confidence
Adopt a roving approach when summer barbel fishing and introduce just one handful of bait into a spot before moving on and baiting one or two more. Once you have fed all your spots, stealthily return to where you began, and there is every chance the barbel will have begun to graze on the freebies without too much caution.
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Give them variety
A lot of big barbel will have seen every trick in the book, and if your hookbait is a little too blatant in the low-water conditions currently prevailing, there’s every chance they’ll ignore it. Feeding lots of different sizes, shapes and colours of pellets, and using one as hookbait, will make it far harder for them to spot the trap.
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Concentrate the shoal
Attach a small PVA bag of mixed-sized pellets to your rig before casting out, either by nicking it on to the hook directly or threading it down the hooklink. This will create a tight pile of bait right next to your hookbait. Lower your rig in very gently, using the lightest possible lead you can get away with to just hold bottom in the flow.
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Boost your hookbaits
A halibut pellet makes a brilliant and very durable summer hookbait, but it can be made even more effective by giving it a quick glug of a pungent flavouring before you cast it out. What you use is down to personal choice, but Sonubaits Code Red Oil is a product that has a solid track record of fooling big barbel in high summer.
THE BEST LIQUIDS, ADDITIVES AND BAIT BOOSTERS WILL MAKE YOUR HOOKBAITS STAND OUT.
