Good luck with your 'Masters'. I wouldn't bother with the angling clubs until you want river access.
Dr Nick Giles (Game Conservancy/Wetlands Research) mentioned P.C. Hunt Aand Dr. J.W. Jones as having done a lot tagging and tracking of barbel, literally up and down the Severn.

I've snipped a bit from 'Shoaling and Movements of Barbel' in his Freshwater Fish - 1994 Swan Hill.
I also hope it's of intrest to the forum:

"It seems that barbel are very sensltlve to variations in current flow, moving their favourite holding positions on the river bed as the flow regime changes, for example after heavy rain or when sluice gates are opened and closed. Individual fish need areas within their normal 'home range' where they can hold station efficiently both at times of flood and, conversely, when the river is at a summer low. P. C. Hunt and J. W. Jones tagged more than 3000 Severn barbel in the 1970s recapturing over 500, about half by electro-fishing and half by angling.
Of the 531 recaptured fish, 287 had not moved far away from the initial site of capture since being tagged; 92 were caught downstream and 152 upstream. The vast majority of fish had moved less than one kilometre, indicating that barbel probably reside in single stretches of river for fairly long periods. Multiple recaptures of the same fish from a given spot were made on several occasions, reinforcing the view that certain fish occupy the same lie for extended periods of time. This is not always true however, since one individual moved a record 34 kilometres from its tagging site! Hunt and Jones concluded that barbel movements in a river the size of the Severn were complex and required more research before they could be understood fully. The Severn barbel population seemed to be split into two groups:
1. Shoals of small fish which tend to stick together and which move occasionally from one stretch to another.
2. Single (often large) fish, which seem to move often, perhaps in search of richer feeding grounds.
One clear-cut finding was that large (more than 2-kg) fish tended to be caught from deep holes or from lies where overhanging bushes with submerged root masses provided overhead cover. This is certainly the case on the upper Great Ouse where I have seen barbel occupying such spots for five consecutive years."