Roger Standen reports on the rise and rise of the barbel stocks on this southern river

According to some, the River Medway has always held barbel and they refer to the land bridge between England and Europe, before the ice age when it was part the Rhine system. There is the story of an old man, no longer with us, who claimed to have caught barbel from the river before the First World War. However, all this is hearsay and if the river did hold barbel thousands of years ago they could so easily have died out and I suggest nobody really knows for sure.

I believe the barbel that are now in the river is the direct result of stocking by the Royal Tunbridge Wells Angling Society and the Kent River Board. The first stocking by the Kent River Board comprised of few fish and the survivors were those that were caught in the late eighties and nineties. Peter Woodhouse landed the biggest at 16lb 2oz and was then the British record. A friend of mine, Sam Fox, caught what were believed to have been all the big fish in the river at the time with a top weight of 15lb 6oz. He did, of course, catch the same fish as Peter Woodhouse, but at a lesser weight.

Around that time the Royal Tunbridge Wells Club were stocking with barbel and have made several stocking since. The result of this is that barbel can now be caught as far down river as Maidstone and as far upstream as Ashurst. But, while most anglers still fish the upper river for the species, the downstream stretches are becoming more and more popular. This is good news for barbel anglers because it will relieve the pressure on some stretches that were in danger of becoming over fished.

It really is good news all round, for not only are the barbel now widespread, but there appears to be lots of them and instead of just a few big fish, there are now barbel of all sizes from very small to mid double figures. Even the River Beult at Yalding is said to hold a few, though I have no personal experience of this. However, we must not be complacent for many fish are recaptures and it can appear there are more than there really are. There is also the threat of pollution that is always hanging over us. Only a few months ago the River Grom, a tributary of the Medway, was polluted by Southern Water's sewerage plant wiping out the entire stream. Although there weren't any signs of dead fish in the main river, one wonders how near we came to a catastrophe.

Night shift
Many of today's barbel anglers fish at night and on some stretches of the river, there is the day shift and the night shift. Some arrive late afternoon and fish to the early hours while others are just packing up. Then there are those that do both, fish all day, into darkness until the early hours. I fall into the day shift category often packing up as others are arriving.

I do not know whether the anglers fishing after dark catch more than those who fish in the daylight; it would be wrong to draw any conclusions from such statistics even if I had them, because some anglers are more experienced than others and whether the better ones fish after dark, or not, couldn't be calculated. There are two reasons why I do not fish after dark and the main reason is I consider it unsafe for man of my age to do on the upper river where the banks are very high and treacherous to say the least. They are especially high in some areas, also very steep and were it not for work parties cutting steps, most swims would be completely unfishable.

I catch my share of barbel during daylight and apart from that I like to move about and moving swims in darkness would be extremely hazardous.

There are numerous advantages fishing in daylight and the first is accurate casting into the spots that are likely to produce takes. If there is one thing I have learnt about the upper Medway is that there are tiny spots that produce fish and many spots that do not. Over the past couple of years I have pieced together many of spots where barbel feed, whether this changes at night, I do not know.

Simple method
My method of catching them is simple and not unlike that practiced by Ray Walton. It was, in fact, Ray who encouraged me to fish his way, after I spoke to him at an angling show a few years back. Like him I fish with meat and with as little weight as possible, though I have to say I haven't gone into the detail he has in weighting the hook and fishing with Plasticine on the line. As often as not there is very little flow in summer and under these conditions I freeline meat straight on the hook. If I can find any fast water I cast across to the far side and allow the current to bounce the bait back across, downstream of my own bank. In some cases I make a fairly long cast downstream, but still to the opposite side of the river and again if there is enough flow allow it swing across.

One swim that I have fished often has three spots that produce barbel. Downstream of where I sit are crack willows and hawthorn bushes that hang over the water and although there are trees on the opposite bank they do not hang over, only those immediately opposite me. Just upstream on the opposite bank the current sweeps round under roots of the trees.

I fish this swim in two ways, one by casting downstream to the far end of the trees and to the opposite bank. Usually there is enough flow to allow the bait to swing under the last tree. I then leave it for anything up 20 minutes and sometimes a take will come from this spot. If it doesn't I reel in a few yards of line until the bait is approximately half way down the swim under the canopy of trees. Again I leave it for a maximum of 20 minutes, though usually if a bite comes it is generally sooner rather than later, often within a few seconds of moving it. If nothing happens I reel the bait towards me again until the bait is under the near tree where I occasionally get a take, but not as often as I do in the other two positions.

I may spend a couple of hours repeating this every now and again, but if that fails I cast upstream and across to where the water swirls around the roots. There is a little bay in the opposite bank not much more than 3ft by 2ft where the water swirls either side of a branch that dips into the water. It usually takes a swan shot, sometimes two to hold bottom in that little indentation. A take generally comes within a minute of casting in, if I am to get one at all.

Another swim I fish appears to have three hot spots; it is fairly large pool, but the fish I have caught from it have all come from just three tiny areas. Again they have all been caught on meat, mostly chopped ham and pork. I use large pieces an inch square sometimes larger and sometimes I thread more than one piece up the line and drop it onto the one on the hook. I half cut the meat with a knife, but make sure one side has a jagged edge so it represents those pieces that have been thrown in after an angler has finished fishing.

Stupid animals
In this swim I cast upstream and across to the main flow and I usually have to pinch on a swan shot, sometimes two to hold bottom. The current takes the bait across and into the centre of the pool, though the bites generally come when the bait is on the move. On the other side of the pool a crack willow hangs over into the water and by casting at an angle beyond the tree it is possible, when there is reasonable flow, to get the bait right under the tree. Again, if I get a bite it comes pretty quickly, but I have to bend into it hard to bully it away from the tree; fortunately barbel do not necessarily keep trying for snags and rarely try for the same one twice. In fact, I believe they are fairly stupid animals and don't really know where they going. Another good taking point is downstream of the pool under the far bank where I use just enough weight to hold bottom.

There are another four swims that I fish regularly and they all have small areas where most of the bites come from. One is a small weir where it is possible to catch under ones own bank just downstream. I have fished every possible position in that swim, but have only ever had barbel takes from that one small area. Yet another swim only seems to produce barbel in fairly shallow water before rapids. No doubt other anglers have experienced different spots where they catch.

My biggest barbel a fish of 14b 6oz came within minutes of casting in and was the result of spotting barbel in a spot I hadn't caught from before. Several times while fishing this particular swim I had noticed clouds of mud rising up from the bottom downstream to my right, but thought it was carp. One day fishing the swim I fed sweetcorn into the area while casting in the opposite direction, after a while I noticed the mud clouds rising to the surface, but again thought it was carp. Later a barbel about 4lb rolled above where the mud was being stirred up and I began to wonder if barbel were, in fact, responsible for the clouds of mud. I remembered an angler I met at Sharnfold who told me he had been throwing pieces of chicken into the margin of the lake only to see mud clouds rising above where he threw them in. He then dropped his bait in the spot and caught a barbel, similar situation.

With this in mind I decided fish the spot, but without success, then arriving at the river one morning I decided to fish the swim again and as I walked down the bank disturbed a fish in the margin. I fed two areas of the swim with pellets and waited for an hour before casting in, but my cast to a different part of the swim produced nothing so I gently flicked my bait across under a small willow tree near to where I had seen the mud rising and where I had baited. Once again I was fishing with pork and ham and held the bait in position with a single shot. In less than five minutes the rod nodded and then pulled over. The strike was met with solid resistance and I had to bend into it hard to move it. Slowly it came towards me and I thought it was a big chub, but when I got it under the rod tip, it took off heading towards a bush lying in the water. Eventually I managed to turn it, but it was sometime before I had it under the tip again where the water was deep. I would gain a yard of line only to lose it as the fish bored down deep. My Conoflex fibreglass rod was bent double and sometimes the tip was in the water almost like boat fishing as the fish rose up only to bore down again, but eventually it gave up and I was able to net it.

The hook almost fell from its lip and I quickly slipped it out of the net into a wet carp sack and placed it back in the water to recover. I recognised the fish as the one caught by George Hinds at 14lb 10oz and 14lb 7oz respectively and 16lb by Duncan Mills. I zeroed the scales with a large carp sling with a zip and after the fish had recovered placed the sack and barbel in the sling and weighed the fish and carp sack. Afterwards I weighed the sack and deducted it to give me the true weight. All the checking was done after I had released to fish back into the river.

There are now more barbel in the Medway than at any other time in my life time, but there are still many recaptures and I believe there are a lot less than some anglers believe.

This article was originally published in Coarse Angling Today