so mushy pea head, im all for stepping up the gear for barbel but u might as well throw a rope in, as for leaving hooks in ive never caught a barbel with a hook in his gob and ive been fishing the severn for 40 years and have caught more barbel than u will ever get, and ive never seen a fish wrapped round a snag in my life. it wouldnt bother me what u do, but when u preach on video about other anglers using lighter gear to catch fish then it pisses me off, as for preaching about fish wellfare then let me tell you that sticking a hook in a fishes gob aint fookin good for it so we are all guilty on that one knob head.
light gear catches more, snaps more, leave more hooks in fish, leaves fish wrapped round snags, knackers fish out till exhaustion bigger gear is the total opposite the above work it out yourself. big gear also doesn't mean haul, it's just as fun if you can use that thing called a drag on your reel.
2 1/4lb rods unless the severn is in flood crazy you dont need that. I have used 1.1/4 lb rods with out problems even when its in flood a normal feeder or avon rod rest of the time.
stupid carp tactics for barbel. 10lb line is ok but 2.and a quarter pound rods, ridiculous, they r not marlin/ hauling em out at 90 mile an hour is not good 4 em and its supposed to be a fair fight.
makes me laugh they act all fake on these videos LOL they act all caring with the fish and give it time to recover and sit there saying give the fish a few minutes and i bet if the camera was not there or his mate he would just let it go straight away lol :)
The nash baits aren't good for barbell m8. Get some severn valley baits ambush pellets or some sonubaits spicy sausage pellets. Not saying you can't catch barbell with em but trust me, no one uses em 4 barbell on the rivers I fish and Iv'e give em a good go and there not what the barbell want. sonubaits elliptical 10mm pellets work good too.