Ironic fishing tale

[JV44]

The captor of the fish in the OP has a theory that we're enjoying the fruits of a particularly good bygone year-class of chub, maybe 10 years ago. A diet of signals is helping but the number of large chub being reported suggests that a lot have survived previous years and continued to grow on into lumpdom.

 

The future will be interesting, it would be good if other good year-classes were coming through.

 

 

Chris from what Steve said there were several realy good year classes that are producing these giants and future ones ,good fry retention years i think...he goes out with the EA fisheries team on the Thames when the do fish surveys intresting stuff .....1998 was one of these bumper years from memory ....scale readings showing some of the big chub on the Thames being a certain age i believe.

He won`t stick a piccy up for a while as he isn`t finished with that spot and that end there will be a few waiting to jump into it but sure when the time is right i can twist his arm .

Cant go tonight but going Tuesday and Wednesday armed with some wunder bait to suplement the bread...wana come

[Phone]

JV,

 

I have no idea if it will adapt to your water. When I was considerably more stout and willing I fished a highway runoff area. Because of the salt being washed into the river I found that heavily salted and mangled looking baits (you would say "deads") were supurb. Seemed to me the more spurs there were on the bait the better. Often used salted dry sardines.

 

If they don't work as bait you can feed them to Rusty.

 

Phone

[Rusty]

Cant go tonight but going Tuesday and Wednesday armed with some wunder bait to suplement the bread...wana come

 

Tomorrow should be good, I can't believe that neither of my local supermarkets stocked garlic flavoured spam. Doh....that was close, nearly gave it away!

[JV44]

Tomorrow should be good, I can't believe that neither of my local supermarkets stocked garlic flavoured spam. Doh....that was close, nearly gave it away!

The first rule of the chub club is you dont talk about the chub.........oh never mind you have done it now....like no one could guess face......i have several tins that i can sell you for a favourable mark up but some bugger had beaten me to the Spam with Cheese that was sold out........Anderoo????

 

Rivers empty of anglers and home to giant fish...heaven

 

well Anderoo guess we had better make hay as the quote is heading towards rivers empty of water sadly ,i have real fears for next season.................

Edited February 13, 2012 by JV44

[Anderoo]

Not me, I stick to bread cos the crays tend to leave it alone! I tried luncheon meat coated in curry powder last winter when the big fish had wised up to the bread in daytime, and had to give up on it straight away because the crays went mental for it!

 

I'd like to try Steve B's idea of whitebait or lamprey, but unfortunaty in the Thames valley it's a non-starter.

[JV44]

Not me, I stick to bread cos the crays tend to leave it alone! I tried luncheon meat coated in curry powder last winter when the big fish had wised up to the bread in daytime, and had to give up on it straight away because the crays went mental for it!

 

I'd like to try Steve B's idea of whitebait or lamprey, but unfortunaty in the Thames valley it's a non-starter.

 

Slaps head sorry forgot about the crays ,luckily none on my bits so hoping the spam may give us an edge ,just made some super big cage feeders for mega bread mash feeding at range and had thought of making liquidised Bread plug each end of the feeder with a load of whitebait inside that and whitebait on the hook....another plan forming Steve.

[Rusty]

....another plan forming Steve.

 

Yet another one? That's three hundred and twenty nine plans with four weeks to fit them in. It's gonna be a hectic run-in.

[Thames Steve]

Hello all, I'm Steve's (JV44) and Rusty's friend, the lucky captor of that 7lb 7oz chub on Sunday night. I'm a fellow AN'er but being a Thames angler, mainly reside on the TAC's forum so don't get on here much as I'd like. Steve has asked me to add to this thread.

 

Previously, beyond 4 inch chublets, I'd never caught a Thames chub. I'd hoped to catch a lucky one whilst fishing small deads after zander and perch but alas, no. Not even on pellets whilst after bream.

 

I fish Staines downwards and they're just not as prevalent as further upstream. Some Mid Thames matches are won with chub, with 2nd and 3rd places all chub nets - that would be unheard of down on the Lower river. However, the occasional beast lurks.

 

So, 7lb 7oz for my first ever Thames chub, backed up by a 5lb 10oz fish within an hour. You go years without catching one, then two of specimen proportion grace your net within the hour! Fishing eh?

 

Caught on quiver tip, 6lb line, hair-rigged flavoured meat. Water temperature 36 degrees, frosty net, lots of flow but all from snow melt and road salt

 

As I've said elsewhere, I've learned a lot about angling this year, mainly not to second guess conditions. My two best Thames fish have been in a really hard frost (10lb zander) and then this chub in snow melt.

 

Moral of the story, get out there and don't second guess conditions. The fish tell us when they feed, not the other way round

 

Fished alone and an over-excited self take, too close to the flash but you can see from its frame it will be an 8 pounder before long - it's even beginning to develop carp-like shoulders.

 

[Rusty]

That is an absolutely monstrous chub Steve, congratulations. And then a big 'five' to back it up, doesn't sound lucky to me.

 

Well done sir

 

Edit: Your flavoured bait is crap further up, totally useless and will never catch a fish. It must be because I blanked on it tonight and Steve may have done too (I left first). Mind you our efforts were hampered by Steve creating a batch of bouyant breadmash, in it went and then off it floated downstream

Edited February 14, 2012 by Rusty

[Steve Burke]

What a cracker! Many congratulations!