The Urban Fly Fisher

Someone left a comment on this post that was pretty interesting. I am reposting it here as I have configured the blog to only show the last 5 posts or something. Some people were complaining that as I post pictures it was taking a while for the full month to load……you live n learn I suppose!!

Quote “Water bailiffs around the loch have twice caught fishermen with containers of live barbel, which can grow up to 20lb and which feed on eggs of other fish.”

Utter rubbish. Any coarse angler worth there salt knows that Barbel are fast water fish. It would be extremely unlikely that (a) they would survive in the loch, (b) that they would spawn and © they would eat other fishes eggs, although this cannot be ruled out as ALL fish, especially Brown Trout, will scoff eggs if they are hungry enough.
Also, the British record has only just gone over 20 pounds in the last few months, and this was an exceptionale fish. The Scottish record stands officially at 8 lb..bit of a difference there. What has probably happened is baliffs have caught people with Gudgeon, a fish sometimes used as live bait for Pike. These fish grow to 6oz or so but look like baby barbel