Compromise

[Garth]

Alright Chaps,
When Fishing for Barbel in summer, low clear conditions, I always find that I have to sacrifice catching chub, in order to land the barbel.

Chub normally will be very cute, in clear conditions, and will not succumb to heavy tackle. I also find they do not like braided hooklengths. I fish with Maggot feeders, and find the chub shake the feeders, and bite very quickly, and are sometimes impossible to catch!

Does anyone have any answers to the above problem, and how to comprimise, and catch big chub, whilst still being able to land the barbel?

Cheers
Garth

[QUIXOTE]

Flourocarbon leaders - stiffer than braid but near invisible in clear water. The only problem is ethical: flourocarbon firstly pollutes the atmosphere during the manufacture process, and secondly it is u/v resistant so it doesn´t rot. Given the amount of line I see about the banks this is a problem, esp. as flourocarbon needs to be very carefully knotted. Perhaps a variation of the old Jack Hilton ´carrot crust´trick might work - larger bits of bait threaded up the line, diminishing to a smaller bit of crust, meat or what-have-you on the hook itself.

[scorpio]

I found that casters will catch both species but you will also be pestered by small fish as well.... failiing that I use meat paste direct onto the hook and that takles both chub and Barbel but I normally end with with a bag of all chub.......

Tony

[Garth]

Have tried it all, but my real problem was rigs, in the fact that to catch chub you have to fish light in low clear conditions, whereas you will lose the Barbel. Fish heavy and you will not hook as many chub?

I wondered if anyone knew of hooklength materila or rigs which can compromise this situation?

Cheers
Garth

[scorpio]

Garth, what Stewart suggests is a good method, short hooklink with an inline feeder, like a method feeder., in fact you could probably try a method feeder and see if it works, I have never used a method feeder for anything apart from carp and tench but it may work.



As for hooklink material I use flurocarbon and found that it works better than normal mono, I use 6 - 8lb depending on the conditions.

Tony

[QUIXOTE]

I just picked up issue 1 of Course Angling Today (Sept) and found Stef Horak´s article on maggot/feeder fishing for chub, which seems to round-out a lot of the discussion here.

[Garth]

Alright Ian,
That sounds like a good idea to me!
What I was actually thinking of was a rig with a form of shock leader, such as pole esastic, which allowed me to fish light lines, but still land big fish.

A couple of my carp mates, have been using a rig with this absorber, and have had a lot of fish!

What I was worried about was the time it may take to land fish, so I think I am going to go to an easy carp water at the weekend to try it out!

Has anyone used this type of rig?

Cheers
Garth

[Smarts]

Remember,Garth though, that the abrasion resistance of fine lines are rubbish!!
This method of using elastic shock absorbers is all the rage when using method feeders on carp puddles for the reason you have mentioned.....it works.....but I would not recommend it's use near snags, weed etc...



Smarts Cowboy Carper

[Garth]

I do know that, and would never use it when is was unsafe to do so, but if the oppurtunity arose then it may well score big.

Cheers
Garth