Barbel

A large, bronzed fish is a beautiful and powerful fish that lives in well-oxygenated waters, particularly rivers. It uses its well-developed whiskers (or barbules) to find food on the riverbed.

Barbels can reach up to to 22lbs and reach over a metre, but are often found in smaller sizes.

Barbel facts

Scientific name	Barbus barbus
Family	Cyprinidae (Carp)
Diet	Insect larvae, worms, crustaceans, snails and small fish
Predators	Pike, otters and fish-eating birds
Size	Up to 90cm
Weight	Up to 22lbs
Record weight	21lb 1oz (9.59kg)
Lifespan	15-20 years

Barbel and our canals

The common barbel is a freshwater fish from the carp family. Although barbel prefer fast-flowing rivers with gravelly bottoms, they can be found in some slow or still waters around our network.

How to identify a barbel

Barbels are usually golden bronze, fading to a creamy white on the belly. The fins are reddish brown, sometimes with an orange tinge. The longest ray in the dorsal fin is ossified and like a spine with a serrate hind edge.

Very small barbel can often be confused with gudgeon, but the fact that barbel have four barbels around their mouth and gudgeon only have two makes them easy to tell apart.

Lifecycle of a barbel

Adults mature at four or five years old and can live for up to 20. Spawning takes place from May to June on stones and gravel. Females spawn up to 9,000 eggs, which are 2mm in diameter and hatch in 10-15 days.

Once the yolk is consumed, young fish start to move about feeding on small bottom-living animals.

Where to find a barbel

Historically, barbel were present only in east coast rivers before their introduction to other rivers, like the River Severn and River Trent.

Barbel are still primarily found in rivers, but they can occasionally be found in certain canals – particularly those with a confluence with a river or fed by a river, like the Kennet & Avon Canal from Kintbury to Reading.

Now they are widespread and even occur in some well-oxygenated stillwaters. Barbel are bottom-dwelling fish in clear water and rapid currents in river stretches called the barbel zone. The waters must not be too cool.

How to catch a barbel

The powerful nature of this fish means a strong rod and line are a must.

Carl Nicholls, fisheries & angling manager

The powerful nature of this fish means a strong rod and line are needed. It’s not uncommon to use a 10lb+ main line. The old style of fishing for barbel was a hemp-laden swim feeder with a large piece of luncheon meat on the hook. While these tactics still work, modern thinking now uses bolt rig tactics and feeding using pellets on a hair rig.