Barbel fishing in the dordogne area of France

[Mark scott]

 I was wanting to come over to the Dordogne area of France flying into  Bergerac to barbel  fish can anyone recommend any rivers small rivers if possible that would hold barbel and the area where they are 

 

[Pelamid]

My local water, the river Lot (next big river south of the Dordogne), has some decent barbel fishing. There is also the river Cele which is much smaller, not fished it yet but have been told it is a good barbel river.

Apparently there are two types of barbel in these rivers, seems I have only caught the smaller variety so far!

Between July - September it is the holiday season. Many of the shallow barbel areas will have bathers on them well into the evening. The Cele has a lot of canoes during the holiday season!!! Early mornings or a couple of hours into darkness (if night fishing allowed!) is your best bet.

 

[David H]

Hi there. I've been looking for information regarding Barbel fishing on the Dordogne as I'm often in that area. I've fished a couple of times on the Dordogne near Gluges but with little success although I've seen plenty of fish there. I was just dabbling as normally I visit the region to dive the caves in the region which spans as far north as the Dordogne and south to the Lot. The Cele is between these two rivers. Many of the cave entrances are in the rivers and diving there I've seen loads of fish particularly when I'm in the water in winter as the cave water temperature is a contant 12c-13c all year around. In the main Chub although a few Barbel too. I once decided to put some boilies on the Cele river bed, go dive and take a look on my return a couple of hours later. The boilies were all gone and it ceratinly wasn't the flow and at a depth of maybe six feet. I then tried another experiment putting mixed groundbait in comprising crushed boilies, hemp, mini pellets, meat etc and then left a GoPro to film what happended. In 90 minutes of footage I saw plenty of Chub then a big Pike came through and scared all off. A while later the Chub returned and a couple of Barbel paid a visit too. I've canoed down the Dordogne too and seen a few Barbel as well as a couple of small Carp maybe 8 lbs to 10 lbs. So the fish are there and the signs by the river describing the species in the river refer to Barbel. 

This year (if Covid allows) I plan to go to the Dordogne area again diving but will give fishing the river a proper go rathan just a dabble. I do feel natural baits might work better unless one does plenty of pre-baiting. I used to drop ground bait from a bridge I often used to cross and see what fish it attracted. After a few days and baiting a couple of times a day the bridge supports had loads of fish feeding! But it took a while and not just hours. 

[Pelamid]

Hi David, thanks for that very interesting post and the bit about caves and water temperatures might come in handy for winter fishing. Maybe even in summer as water temperature can be in the mid-20c bracket and the fish seem to hide up!

I still have not really tried the Cele! So far I have been so obsessed by the Lot that I think of little else (ask my wife!)

My best fish from the Lot last year....