River Fishing Tips | How to bait for barbel - Dai Gribble

I prefer a bait dropper over making lots of casts with a feeder because it’s accurate and often much quicker too.

A bait dropper is a quick and accurate way to feed a barbel swim

I bait up with different-sized pellets and a few crushed boilies. The pellets keep the fish in the swim for long spells while the crushed boilies give them a taste of my hookbait. 

Use a real mix of pellets to keep the fish in the swim for longer

Crushing the boilies releases lots of flavour. I’ll introduce around a pint of mixed barbel pellets and 30 crushed boilies, the exact amount depending on several factors…

The size of the river - The bigger the river I’m fishing, the more bait I will use.

Large well stocked rivers like the Wye, Trent and Severn require heavier feeding

Stock of barbel and other species - if I know there are a lot of barbel, chub, or even silverfish such as roach I will up the amount of feed I put in at the start.

If there are lots of fish they will need more feed

Temperature - As temperatures drop towards autumn, I will scale back on the amount of bait being fed.

Scale back the feed as temperatures drop

How long I am fishing for - The longer my session, the more feed I will introduce.

If you are fishing a long session, try a bait and wait approach