What is your favourite way of river fishing?......... I love trotting a float, trying to tempt all kinds of silver fish.
However, my best river fish ever was/is my very first barbel which I caught a weekend before close season started. A catch I will never forget and will stay in my mind for ever. A beautiful 12lb5oz barbel, which was a little bit too big for my 20 inch spoon landing net lol.

And to top the day off I even managed to catch my PB chub of 4lb4oz, I can honestly say it was my best day fishing so far.

Well done TT, thats a barbel everyone dreams of catching. I haven't fished rivers for a number of years now, as i was brought up around a lot of rivers i have done my fair share and have grew out of that type of fishing, my biggest fish ever from a river was an 18lb sea trout from the River Test, watched her all day under a bridge above a large pool and finally tempted the fish on a large prawn, i've caught many varieties of fish you would normally associate with rivers, but the barbel has always alluded me, one day if the opportunity arises i'll maybe have another go. As with you, trotting a float used to be the favorite way for me, but i did used to like freelining a bit of breadflake or luncheon meat (if i could pinch some off mum) down between the weed beds.

When i was a youngun you didn't get pocket money, so you had to earn what pennies you could get, one way we used to earn a few bob was to catch fish and sell them to family, neighbours and fishmongers. Where i lived was surounded by rivers so it wasn't hard to catch fish, mainly game. They call it poaching these days, but we didn't know that then, so going out after school and using hand lines, something like what you'd use for crabs, we'd set off in search of our main quarry, mainly grayling, trout and salmon. Salmon was difficult as you had to try and pick a smallish one, otherwise two of you had to hang on to the line till the fish tired.
In those days salmon were plentiful and used to come up the rivers in their thousands so easy to get one, the salmon we caught ent to the fishmongers and would get 2/6 for them. The other fish that used to sell well was grayling, i won't tell you how we used to catch those, i would get a shilling for a good one, so was well pleased with that. Trout were more difficult to catch without out a rod but we used to get the odd one out of a brook near where i lived, a shilling for those too if they were big enough. We did get caught on 2 occassions and had our stuff confiscated but as kids it didn't sink in, it was a way of making a few shillings so we carried on. When i look back i can understand why we did it, but if we did the same today we'd have been locked up.

pmsl tr...

River fishing is something I haven't done but am looking forward to my fist time.

Whats so funny, i was a youngun a long long long long long long long loooooooooooooooooooooong time ago.

You saud it mate....not me

hee hee pl, you left out VERY

My favourite way of fishing small rivers is long-trotting a small Avon or stick float using a centrepin for Barbel & Chub or quality Roach.

Although most of the time I'm rolling meat or trundling baits for Barbel because in the summer I only seem to fish in the evenings when the light starts to fade and its too dark to long-trot.

But in the Autumn and Winter I will do much more long-trotting with the pin.

What a smashing Beard that was TT what a weight for a first Barbel (12lb 5oz) my first barbel was just a small 5lb 8oz one caught in 1975 but I still remember it as though it were yesterday.

BB