Which coarse species gives the best fight?

[Scribe]

Barbel for me, even in low summer flow a good one will make your arm ache, that is if they don't grab hold of the river bed and pretend to be huge boulder.

Do love a tench fight though on a waggler rod. My other candidate would be a ghost carp Lb for Lb they are the Psychos of the carp family for me.

 

[Aztecca]

Has to be a big eel for me.

 

[NoCarpPlease]

Where did I hear Perch called Angry Young Williams? Probably in a Guru video I think.

Billies is the term here in the midlands

 

[rudd]

^^ I daren't post a reply to this.....

I took some videos of the dancefloor at this wedding and thought about posting them but then realised my family are madder than me.

You a Royal

 

[BoldBear]

its just the recovery of sturgeon which is a nightmare, they literally fight to the death and if you put them back they just go belly up as nothing left in them, you have rock them in the water for 20 minutes to get the oxygen back in them!!!

Barbel in rivers are exactly the same; they fight to the death and have to be recovered properly for ages to get the oxygen back in them before release.

But for a hard fighting stillwater fish the Tench is hard to beat; have you ever tried to land a few decent sized Tench on float gear? Your arms will really start to ache after catching a few of these.

I’ve no idea about how hard our foreign species fight as other than Wels Catfish I haven’t caught any; however I must admit the Wells catfish I’ve caught have all put up a fairly longish fight but that was purely because they were large and heavy.

Keith

 

[Dave Spence]

Pound for pound, gudgeon. Otherwise it has to be tench.

 

[Mike_Globe]

River barbel take some beating imo just for the speed and power of the fight. Catfish can be pretty mental in bigger sizes but tend to be more like playing a dead weight.

 

[gingert76]

Hi keith, have caught many barbel and they do fight hard but ive had to nurse sturgeon back to life for over a hour before, barbel do need time to recover as you rightly say but every sturgeon was at least 20 mins of rocking and 2am on a November morning rocking a bloody fish backwards and forwards for over 60 minutes wasnt much fun i can tell you lol

 

[bezzer]

A toss up between a Tench and a Barbel.

A Tench on a Waggler is pretty special. I'd love to catch a Barbel on the float; maybe this year

 

[Maesknoll]

Skimmers. Nice and easy.

 

[3_rollers]

Pound for pound I'd say roach/bream hybrids

 

[rd115]

Barbel on the Rivers, Tench when fishing stillwaters.


I do like that initial run of a Pike though once it realises it's been hooked, explosive.

 

[davylad]

Pound for pound I'd say roach/bream hybrids

I see where you're coming from, the Hybrids we used to catch on the Erne weighing 3 or 4 lb took some getting in. The line singing in the wind, taking ages to get to the net.

 

[stevew]

Hardest fighting coarse fish.
Rivers : #1 Mullet, followed by #2 Barbel , with #3 Grayling close by, probably better pound for pound {(but usually on fly so light tackle) , then a big river Bream.
Still water : #1 Wild carp, the greenish slim ones, go so fast, not had one for years, now always big fat bronzy ones, then #2 Tinca Tinca, followed by #3 the Perch - best looking fish

 

[Silverfisher]

Skimmers. Nice and easy.

We get turbo charged ones on our canal, do a half decent impression of a perch initially.

 

[spc123]

On my lads 3 metre unelasticated pole most fish can be interesting

On my 5 m elasticated pole was amazed how much fight baby carp had in them last summer. 4-5 inches max and elastic everywhere

 

[solwood]

An alternative answer is whatever big fish takes the bait when fishing for silvers on rod and line with a .10 hook link, 20 hook and 3lb mainline

 

[Sam Vimes]

I appreciate just how well mullet go, but, despite them sometimes living in fresh water, they aren't coarse fish.
I'll go with the theoretical "pound for pound" guessing game. In no particular order, barbel, carp, grayling, gudgeon and tench are all there or thereabout. I suspect that a 1lb grayling might give a better fight than a 1lb barbel, carp or tench. However, the fast water grayling live in is bound to give them an advantage. Sadly, a 1lb gudgeon is not going to happen to allow such a comparison.

 

[Tinca Steve]

Looking through all these posts I see the same expression used over and over again.
BIG. Young fish are to small to have the muscle power of a teenage type fish. With the largest using their weight instead off muscle. IMO.
So many species at the right size/ age would give a good/great fight.
Where they are caught can make a massive difference, still , gently flowing, medium flow up to raging torrents can make two identical sized fish of the same species seem totally different.
So I just enjoy whatever they give me in the fight whatever the specie.

 

[TiggerXFM]

Imo the faster the flow the easier it is to tire barbel out, because they very rarely ever swim downstream for much distance "unless foul hooked". Once they have made their typical shortish run downstream they usually turn upstream and power off up against the flow. So not only are they fighting a head on current, but they are also fighting the pressure I put on them them with the rod etc. For the biggest part they turn back down stream a short distance, to maybe just below me and repeat the process over and over until they give up. Often they hang about mid river and try hugging the bottom in order to allow the flow to pass over them. By keeping my rod tip up and putting pressure on it pulls the barbels nose/head up allowing the current to flow under it pushing them off balance and making them work harder. So the more flow the harder the fish has to work. I've found that scenario occurs in virtually all the swims i've fished in except when fishing a snag swim where hit and hold tactics are called for.
I dare say that if barbel did decide to power off down stream many would be lost!

Now grayling in fast water, that's a different kettle of fish altogether and if a grayling was as big as a barbel we would need meat hooks, 20lb mono and a 4lb test rod lol.