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hi,i never used to always fish for barbel all the time when i lived in hitchin,apart from the petrol money and a 300 mile trip to the avon i was ltd to when i could go then.i fished the middle ouse in them days mainly after chub [yes in coloured water]i also fished great barford power station after the big carp that congrigated there in the winter.and i had a amazing story to tell my folks when i arrived home.[well next morning,they where asleep]so what i am trying to say is i did a lot of travelling to fish my favourite river.
couloured rivers-well here is one thing in your favour,they wont be able to spot you so easally as in a clear river,provided you havnt spooked them by dumping your tackle down on the bank ect.ok,lets say i lived near the river trent,a big,big river where you cant see anything with boats going up and down.its the start of the season,so if it was me i would spend the first few days just looking[no not for fish]but snags,trees if its got any,sidestreams, slower pace water than the main current,even an angler catching one making a note of where he caught it,hearsay from the tackleshop,where two different currents meet,weirpools thats a dead cert,i had one from the thames at penton hook once,and many other areas i havnt mentioned.oh yes and sometimes food gets thrown in the river by boaters,moving and moored up.

clear rivers-i would just like to say that a few of you dont seem to know what a difference there is between spotting fish and sight fishing.firstly spotting fish[in my case its either barbel or big chub] i only need to spot 1barbel which will tell me where they are,as there will normally be others around,so that is where i will fish for the rest of the day,with enough cover to hide me from the fish.so i am fishing for any barbel or big chub,plus the rig i use does not catch me any small fish,and there is no special bait either.
sight fishing is spotting a very big fish perhaps in a shoul of barbel or even a loner,if a smaller barbel or chub get to the bait first the rig is tweaked to spook them, so waiting until the bigger fish comes back into the swim.

i know a lot of you dont believe what cagey barbel do,and this is one of the pleasures of being able to watch them,pick up a bait and drop it before you even strike,and ive said it before, the master at hitting this type of behaviour is terry lampard.

if you cant see them then you wont know whats happening to your bait in coloured water.its not happening all the time,but i can assure you it does happen.

just one other thing about the avon,as i have said before the river is not always gin clear and if it rains or the riverboard is weed cutting then the river will colour up,and like a lot of you i wont be able to see them either,so you do need to have knowledge of your river and where they will be,or where they have been caught before.

of course i might be talking a lot of rubbish,but if one of you take notice then it will be aresult for me.
derek the blinkerman.

hi,mr jeeves you have read that post wrong,if ime walking along the riverbank spotting fish,i said if i only see one barbel that only tells me if there are barbel there which is what i want,but maybe not the one i want to catch as there will be others bigger in the area,ime sure that a 7lb or 8lb barbel wont be the biggest in that area,and with bait going in would also bring in others.
derek.