Nowt tricky. A running leger and a hair rigged boilie or pellet. PVA mesh bag of pellets on the hook and bob's yer uncle. Vary hooklink length to suit - longer better than shorter in my experience.

I use 3ft to 5ft hooklinks.

Any old boilies seem to work. Dynamite Oyster and Mussel worked for me last season. Another good one is Mainline Activ-8 if you prefer frozen to shelflife,  but I dont think I've tried one that hasn't caught barbel - including Tutti Frutti!

I use a mix of pellets in the bag - mostly Sonu Tuna Spod mix (partly because I get it for free, but I would buy it because it works) with halibut and trout pellets added in various sizes. That gives a mix of attractants and breakdown times.

If my approach doesn't work try hemp and casters as feed and hair rigged casters on the hook in the summer/autumn.

Not my kind of approach but it works for others. As does good old meat in flood conditions.

Basically, keep it simple. Find the fish and the chances are you'll catch them. 

I don't get hung up on hooklink materials. Sometimes I use clear mono (I can't remember what I use) but mostly I Mason Tiger Braid. This is mainly because where I fish I get through a lot of rigs lost in snags, so economy counts and I get 100yds for less than 25yds of carp hooklink material!

WOODSY wrote on Apr 17^th, 2010 at 8:55am:



if cray fish are present i find using prawns as hook bait really sorts out some bonus fish/the bigger ones
but as dave said keep it simple no need to over complecate things

best of luck

Cant use korda iq for barbel can you????

Whats wrong with boilies???what about john baker boilies and lead clips??use em for whatever you want.