The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Problem Dave - boats and more boats! Pleasure boats, kayaks, canoes, floating gin palaces, there is all of them on the Thames except a few "Chelsea" yachts!

No boats where I fish, apart from my punt. And the bottom is not shaggy, I know this from moving a ledgered worm around. It's about 25' deep near the weir but becomes about 7 to 9' deep where I fish. And fishing from the bank is not allowed! The first bend is exactly the spot I had the big pull around bites. The second bend is free fishing and very popular with barbel anglers which I will avoid.

Dave Burr wrote:Or, walk past the weir and fish the second bend below it. Trust me

luv it Dave.....

Olly wrote:Problem Dave - boats and more boats! Pleasure boats, kayaks, canoes, floating gin palaces, there is the all of them on the Thames except a few "Chelsea" yachts!

Absolutely agree there Olly,

Which is the only reason why I've only ever barbel fished the Thames at night, complete nightmare and waist of time during the day

I used to have the weir pool permits on the Thames and could only be fished during the day and normally during the lock keepers work hrs, the fishing became rather difficult in the weir pools during daylight hrs and we started to notice that a lot of em were coming out mainly of a night time to people who'd have there own boats that used to anchor up in the weir pools for the night and eventually this is what I used to do and done fairly well for several years once I sused it out

Cheers Nigel. It's where we were last time, so I might try the first deeper spot. Might stay until after dark and chance my luck.

It's not a wind up. Honest.

As for boats, isn't that what mines were designed for?

Yer, but they're great to fish from! Especially to get to the spots that the land lubbing brigade can't access.

I've usually done well using bacon grill or luncheon meat, with a simple running ledger. The weight of which depends a bit on how snaggy is the pool. Casting right under the weir can be productive. There is usually a 'back flow' and you can get away with much less weight than you might think.

Trevor - my experience of weir pool fishing for Barbel is two fold: slightly contradictory too. At this time of year I have found there will seemingly be once place that Barbel will take - at least on the Avon stretches I fish - that is almost invariably a small area - usually far bank or at least away from the primary source of bank side disturbance - a depression perhaps - a small area behind a slight bank side outcrop or tree - but in my Barbel fishing - it has meant an accurate cast to just one small area often 20 - 50 metres down from the weir pool itself. The other technique others have mentioned already ... trundle a bait around until you get interest then "hold on" ....

Don't dismiss pepperami often works when other baits struggle...