Like a lot of barbel anglers, my approach to loose feed over the years has to be to feed heavily with hemp and fish hook-baits over the top.  It’s a tactic which has brought me a fair amount of success over the years but I began to question whether the barbel were beginning to associate the hemp with danger and avoid them.  This, coupled with the fact that barbel fishing has undergone somewhat of a revolution with the pellet taking over as the number one barbel bait (with boilies and paste baits just behind), has forced me to re-evaluate how I stimulate barbel into feeding.  The carp boys are ahead of us when it comes to using protein baits and how to top up a swim and so I looked at some carp literature for inspiration but carried out my own tests to see that they performed as expected.  Some of my findings may surprise some people but we have to remember that rivers are not stillwaters and will react differently.  An obvious statement but one that possibly needs stating.

Let’s take a look at some methods for getting bait onto the river bed and hopefully ensuring that it stays where you want it.

Andy Humphries with a 10lb 4oz barbel caught at the back end of the season (on a full moon!), which came from the Severn on feedered pellet.

Throwing bait by hand or catapult

Larger items like pellets, boilies or meat can be thrown in.  However, even modest currents can leave the bait all over the swim and commonly in the two or three downstream.  Small items like hemp or small pellets can end up even further away.  The deeper the river and the stronger the current, the more likely it will happen.  Can be advantageous to help draw fish up but not to get them to feed consistently near your hook bait. 

Bait droppers 

I have made my own from old sardine tins for many years and for getting a bed of hemp or particles down, they take a lot of beating.  Unfortunately the weight of the dropper and especially the lead used to counter balance the system means that it takes a lot of casts to really get a swim going.  If you have several swims on the go, the amount of casting will be increased.  Most barbel rods aren’t designed to take the amount of abuse that repeated casting can cause.  You could use a heavier duty carp or pike rod with correspondingly heavier line but I prefer to travel lighter and limit the amount of tackle I take with me.  After watching what happens when a dropper hits bottom and how the contents scatter, I have devised the following method to ensure the bait stays fairly concentrated.  I try to ensure that I cast upstream (if bankside obstructions allow) and when the dropper hits bottom, let the line go slack and then gently ease the dropper up.  The door of the dropper should be just open and facing downstream and the contents will start coming out but because the actual dropper is deflecting the flow, the contents should settle in a fairly tight area behind the dropper.

Swimfeeders 

Bait Rocket 

Gardener Tackle do a brilliant little device that enables a large slug of bait to be delivered just above the hook.  Initially I scalded some large pellets and when cooled, broke them down further with a potato masher.  The sloppy mixture could be stiffen if required with some ground pellet or groundbait or made sloppier with extra water.  Unfortunately the large pellets never broke down fully but when I started to use mini’s, the problem disappeared.  The rocket is inserted into a bucket of the pellet slop and a core pulled out and then compressed and it then slides on the line and sits around the lead.  I preferred to make the mixture a bit sloppy and then mould it around the lead so that it just held when casting.  Obviously on larger rivers where you have to cast a long way, you may not have this option.  The slop breaks down quite quickly and leaves a pile of pellet powder in the vicinity of the hookbait.  A method I further developed was to roll the cylinder shaped slop in a maggot box of mini pellets to form some ‘spotted dick’ which ensured that the fish had a choice of the powder and got to crunch some proper pellets.  The main disadvantages with the method were that the scalded pellets go anaemic or the fact that everything you touched was soon covered in pellet slime!  When I made up a drier mix consisting of ground pellets, groundbait and some method mix at a ratio of 60:20:20 and bound with molasses, Corn Steep Liquor and just enough water to ensure that the mixture held together, things certainly improved.  You can also add some mini pellets or crumbled boilie to the mixture to make it more appealing.  This is my method of choice as it is so versatile and cheap.

PVA Bags 

Taken the carp world by storm and everybody swears by them and apart from cost, have no disadvantages.  Not quite I’m afraid.  I started using them and like most other people filled the bag, did a quick lick n’ stick, pricked the bag with a baiting needle and hooked on the bag at the fold.  I cast out into some clear water and watched the lead hit bottom followed by the bag and bait.  After a few seconds the bag rose off the bottom, almost like a cobra raring up at which point the water did it’s stuff and dissolved the bag and the mini pellets ejected and came to settle about fifteen feet behind the hook bait.  Since then I half fill the bag, put the lead in and then top it up with pellets before sealing.  This ensures that the loose feed stays on the bottom and behaves like most anglers think it should.  Like I mentioned earlier, rivers aren’t stillwaters and we have to approach them differently.  By the way, ESP sell a range of pre-perforated bags that should prevent your hand looking like a pin cushion!

Funnel Web PVA   

PVA stocking is probably bigger in the carp world than bags.  I had to try some as the system looked pretty fool proof.  I first used it one damp night and soon found the pitfalls of handling with wet hands!  Following that I decided to make some up at home to make things easier.  I filled some with mini pellets only and others with ground pellet at the bottom, mini’s in the middle and topped off with some more ground pellet. These were transferred to a waterproof box and taken to the river.  As I arrived at the river several hours before dark, I decided to test some in the margins to see how effective they were.  I hooked on a stick at the knot and cast in and was surprised to see it pulling the bait off the bottom before the PVA melted enough for the stick to float away intact.  A mini pellet only stick didn’t fare much better in a slack, taking a good five minutes before the stocking melted enough to allow the pellets to drop to the bottom.  Because pellets are quite high in oil, this masks the PVA and prevents rapid breakdown.  Resorting to making them back up on the bank saw normal service resumed.  If this happens in a lake it shouldn’t cause you too much problem and the end result should be pretty much what you expected in the first place.

PVA String 

I cut some boilies in half and threaded them on with a baiting needle.  Use the finest string that you can get away with to ensure a quick breakdown.  Most anglers tie the string to the hook but I tied mine on to the main line above the lead.  My reasoning being that your bait is always the last in line doing it the accepted way whereas with my way, it is more likely to be in the middle of the freebies after allowing for the current to shift some of them.  

So, the carp boys can teach us a thing or two but rather than blindly following what they are doing, it can pay to adapt the methods slightly.  Don’t forget, rivers aren’t stillwaters and hopefully they never will be!

If you'd like to find out a bit more about The Barbel Catchers Club, please click here.