When anglers think of barbel, their first thought of where to catch them is on the river, and while there are some lakes and commercials that stock them, the majority of the captures are from flowing water. So you can imagine the shock when Paul Bailey was happily catching bream on his local canal only to hook and land this superb barbel!
"I’ve been catching the odd decent bream from the Don Navigation over the past few weeks, so this morning I decided to give them another go," he told us.
"I settled into a favourite swim of mine, about a hundred yards downstream of the split, and introduced a couple of cricket-sized balls of groundbait laced with small pellets," he added.
"This particular swim was about fifteen feet deep and, with hardly any noticeable flow, I cast my banded 8mm pellet directly over the spot where the groundbait had gone in."
Paul had a couple of casts and, after around twenty minutes, began getting his first few liners, a clear sign the bream had descended onto his baited area. It wasn’t long before he had two good bream on the bank, and the rest of the session looked promising.
"Upon returning the second bream, I chucked out again and the tip banged around, but on striking, I realised immediately that this was no bream," he recalled.
"After a pretty exciting battle, the fish was eventually landed. Following a quick photo, a surprise canal barbel was soon returned to the water unweighed, but certainly memorable."
IF YOU WANT A CHANCE OF CATCHING BIG FISH FROM A CANAL, HEAD TO ONE OF THESE STRETCHES.
