CHAPTER V. 



TEE BARBEL. 



Habits and Haunts — Baits — Legering — Ground-baiting — Fishing 

 with Float Tackle in the Nottingham Style — Tight-corking — 

 Clay -ball Fishing. 



ARBEL, when you can catcli them, give 

 better sport than any other of the coarse 

 fish. They are found in a good many rivers 

 in England, but not in Ireland or Scotland ; 

 and are most plentiful in the Thames and 

 the Trent. In the last-named river they 

 have been known to reach a weight of 181b. 

 A barbel of 121b., or a little over, is, however, 

 the largest any reader of this book is likely to capture. In 

 shape the fish is very much like an enlarged gudgeon. His 

 mouth is decorated with four barbules, or beards, and the upper 

 part of his head and back is a greenish brown, shading to a 

 yellowish green on the sides ; while over all is just a suspicion 

 of bronze. The belly fins are tinged with a pinkish red. 



The barbel spawns* in the spring, on shallows, where it 

 spends a week to recruit, and then takes lodgings for the season 

 in or near what anglers term barbel swims. These swims 

 are, broadly speaking, of three kinds : First, weir and mill- 

 pools ; second, deep water alongside steep clay or overhanging 

 banks; third, deep holes in mid-stream, where the current is 

 strong, and, generally, where the current is heavy and the 



* The eggs, or roe, are sometimes very poisonous. 



