I've started fishing a little river which I suspect holds some big chub and perch (could be wrong!). The big, big problem is the amount of crayfish in there. Almost all waterways here have crays and they are a nuisance, but this place is something else. I'm used to putting up with what I'd call 'normal' levels of them, and can tell a cray bite from a fish bite, but this place is nuts!

Trotting off bottom is OK as they don't have time to grab the bait, but I've always had my biggest perch and chub (from small rivers) fishing on or near the bottom. It's less of a problem for perch as I prefer to float fish for them anyway. But for the chub, I'm struggling to think of way to present a static bait without it getting 'crayed'.

My favoured way to chub fish is the good old, bait up a few swims and fish them in rotation with quivertip gear and big baits. The only things I can think of are (1) drag myself out of my comfort zone and float fish, to keep the bait off the bottom, and (2) leger a bouyant bait like crust to keep it off the bottom.

Any other ideas, or tips on float fishing for big chub, or thoughts on the perch fishing? Most of the river has a sluggish flow, especially at the moment.

(PS I did briefly try a paternostered small roach in one of the deep, snaggy holes, with no joy, but I didn't give it very long. I'd rather not livebait, I've gone a bit soft in my old age. I had another little roach in the landing net in the margin, and after 5 minutes I looked down to see 3 masssive crays all climbing up the mesh trying to get in! It's the number of crays that makes me think there could be some big fish in there...)

This post has been edited by Anderoo: Jul 3 2009, 09:01 AM

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Do Crayfish like Hemp Seed? If not perhaps a armamesh bag of hemp might work? Fished over a bed of hemp.

Trotting a minnow livebait would be my choice if it's that crammed with crays. Or spinning a dead mounted minnow!

Anything on the bottom brings them over Errm, including hemp...

Worms, out of interest, why a minnow livebait/deadbait, as opposed to worm, bread, etc.? (I haven't seen or caught any minnows, by the way.)

Minnows come in as one of my top baits for both perch and chub. Big chub seem to take them when all else fails. The minnows are spawning near me currently, huge shoals in the shallows, so perhaps not the best idea at the moment.

I suppose if there are no minnows in your stream then small roach might be a better idea?

Lobworms are of course excellent for chub and perch and bread and cheese for chub. I was just thinking that a livebait has more opportunity to avoid the crays as it's being trotted down or even stret-pegged round an eddy.

The only way I have found to get round Crays is to either fish off bottom or use a hard bait or an articial bait but even then the crays seem to scare some fish away from your baited area; if the fish don't have Crays on their menu of course.

Our club have started investigating with the NRA why our part of the upper Lea around Wheathamstead area doesn't appear to have any foreign Crays although they have been caught a few miles downstream for many years now and are prolific lower down towards London.
Some members believe that the large numbers of Chub and Barbel in our part of the river are keeping them down but there are Crays in prolific streams all over the UK so I can't believe that is the only reason.
But something is keeping them from spreading even though many stillwaters in the river catchment area have had them for many years now.
Im not complaining as I hate the things but I wish we new why as it could lead to finding a way to control them; Lets hope the situation doesn't change and we don't start catching them.
Looking on the bright side they may find an answer to the Cray problem during their research you never know.
When we first had Turkish Crays (the ones with the long pointed claws) in our estate lake back in the 90s we used to net them for a university (nottingham I think) so that they could investigate how to control them, we were told that they carried a virus which can wipe out Signals (or the other way round) but nothing positive came from it.

This post has been edited by BoldBear: Jul 3 2009, 01:47 PM

how about a popped up lobworm? If I remember correctly I'm sure I've seen people inject lobworms with air to make the boyuant...

Yes, good idea! I would prefer to use popped up baits on my usual quivertip set-up, just so I can keep the bait in the same place for as long as possible.

I suppose the only two ways around the crays is to trot smaller baits like maggots and keep feeding all the time, or bait up with something like mashed bread/maggots+chopped worms and leger bouyant baits over the top...

I think any bait on the bottom is no use, as a cray will just gather it in and hide it from any fish, no matter how hard it is.

Interesting about your cray experiences, BB. It made me wonder whether there are lots of crays in there because there aren't many bigger fish keeping the numbers in check? I really don't know yet. The river seems healthy enough, with lots of small fish.

This post has been edited by Anderoo: Jul 3 2009, 10:52 AM

I think I'd go down the trotted small livebait, or I migth break the law and fish with the crayfish

Rich

I couldn't possibly do that, it's against the law Are you around this weekend Rich - it would be useful for us to try two different approaches, just to see what's in there...