CHAPTERS:
Hampshire Avon and Stour – Chapters 1 – 11.
The River Kennet – Chapter 12.
River Dove and River Trent – Chapters 13 – 17.
Chapter 1. First Avon Visit – Lifelands
Chapter 2. Tackle and Equipment
Chapter 3. Bait
Chapter 4. Ashley Farm
Chapter 5. Ibsley
Chapter 6. Gorley
Chapter 7. Avon Tyrrell – Dudmoor
Chapter 8. Winkton
Chapter 9. Bisterne
Chapter 10. Winkton Revisited
Chapter 11. The Stour – Manor Farm
Chapter 12. The River Kennet
Chapter 13. A New Beginning
Chapter 14. The River Dove
Chapter 15. The Upper River Trent – Alrewas and The Strawberry Farm
Chapter 16. The River Trent – Clifton Bridge
Chapter 17. Middle Trent – Derby
Chapter 18. Night-time Fishing and Flood Conditions
Chapter 19. Return to the Hampshire Avon
Chapter 20. Epilogue
BARBEL QUEST
Cover size: 245 mm x 175 mm
Pages: 176 pages.
Print: Full colour throughout.
Binding: Cloth-bound, dark green endpapers, silk laminated dust jacket, embossed to front cover and spine, with ‘top and tails’.
Special ‘Barbel Quest’ book-mark.
BARRY SNAPE has fished from early childhood and been a keen angler for more than sixty years. Over that time, he has fished for many of the UK’s freshwater species, but now concentrates on his favourite species, the barbel.
This has taken him to many of the country’s most famous barbel fisheries and many of these stories are related within the pages of Barbel Quest.
He is a member of the Three Counties Specimen Group, and keeps the records of the fish caught by the members, covering all the different species.
“During the years of the Covid pandemic, with time on my hands, I thought that I would write about my time fishing for barbel. My story begins in the early 1980s, and goes through to the present day.
I began fishing at an early age and it was my father who set me on this road, buying me my first set of fishing tackle; this consisted of a rod, reel, and landing net, together with the bits and pieces to get me started. Nothing strange in that, you might say – however, the strange thing was that my father never fished, and yet he would take me at weekends to our local canal or one of the local ponds.
From those early days, as with most young anglers, just catching was the most important thing, be it roach, perch, or skimmer bream, and was the incentive for your next session. Since I started my fishing, I have never looked back; I can say that fishing has been a very important part of my life. I have fished for a number of different species over the years, but as I got older I concentrated more on the larger specimens of various species.
A lot of people cannot understand what you see in fishing, going out at all times of the day and night throughout the year – not to mention our very changeable weather conditions at different times of the season. What I would say is that, from an early age, fishing gets into your blood and becomes part of one’s life, which I agree is difficult for non-anglers to understand. I think a lot of anglers, though, would agree with that sentiment.
My interest in barbel started a few years later, and I still love just being by the river at all times of the day, in pursuit of my beloved barbel.”
