chub

[The Flying Tench]

A friend was saying recently that the time to catch chub is the night. I had thought of chub as a day fish, although I realise that specimen hunters fish for big 'last of the shoal' fish in stillwaters at night with deadbaits.

 

I take the point that in some swims you can scare the fish in daylight, and have to catch one fish and move on. With perch they say it is the biggest fish which often takes the bait first, but is that so with chub? If not, I can see there is an argument for fishing at night when maybe they won't spook so easily and you have a better chance of getting the bigger fish. And I guess you'd need a bigger and preferably smelly bait.

 

But for pleasure I'd rather move from swim to swim on a bright clear day than sit in the freexing cold at night! But then, I have to admit my only 3 fish over 5lbs have all been caught at dusk.

 

What do others think?

[Guest tigger]

A friend was saying recently that the time to catch chub is the night. I had thought of chub as a day fish, although I realise that specimen hunters fish for big 'last of the shoal' fish in stillwaters at night with deadbaits.

 

I've always thought of chub as being a day fish myself. I always think of them as hunting by sight more than cent.

[starlight]

def after dark for chub, you can sit in a swim all day and not get a sniff but once the light fades they start getting bold. one of my fav methods after dark was stalking about with a big lump of danish blue or baiting a few swims before dark with mashed bread and then fishing them with big lumps of crust. i would fish for them in daylight hours if the water has a bit of colour but would float fish for them getting them going with plenty of maggots going in.

[Chris Plumb]

I've always thought of chub as being a day fish myself. I always think of them as hunting by sight more than cent.

 

I agree - chub are great opportunists and are 'mainly' sight feeders - doesn't mean of course they won't find a big smelly bait after dark. Only 3 of my top 10 chub were caught after dark (and they're ranked 8,9 & 10! )

 

 

C.

[John Weddup]

I have to say I thought day until speaking to a carp angler who has caught some cracking chub at night on boilies.

 

I will say that when the river has good colour I have noticed the sunset special hour for roach and chub is not so good as when its running clear. It fishes better all day with colour so I guess its the fishes lack of confidence in clear conditions that make the dark a better prospect.

 

John

[The Flying Tench]

I agree - chub are great opportunists and are 'mainly' sight feeders - doesn't mean of course they won't find a big smelly bait after dark. Only 3 of my top 10 chub were caught after dark (and they're ranked 8,9 & 10! )

C.

 

Chris, congratulations on your latest catch on the Chubbly thread. From memory you got 14 from one swim! Do you find spooking the fish is an issue, sometimes. ie do you ever need to leave a swim and go back?

[Chris Plumb]

Chris, congratulations on your latest catch on the Chubbly thread. From memory you got 14 from one swim! Do you find spooking the fish is an issue, sometimes. ie do you ever need to leave a swim and go back?

 

Often - with the "constant trickling in maggot approach" once they start to have it they seem to feed with abandon! Yesterday things went quiet after the 1st hour with the barbel and 4 chub caught so I dropped downstream thinking I might have overfed them and they would have followed the bait down. However after an hour of catching just the silvers I went back to where I started and had the 5-15 almost immediately - interestingly right at the head of the swim AND up in the water, next 2 or 3 fish were also in the same spot - seems the fish had actually been following the trail of maggots UPSTREAM in their enthusiasm to get there first! Later fish were further down the trot - but I still had 10 chub in the last 2 hours.

 

 

C.

[Andrew Boyd]

Each river is different. My local tends to get busy with Barbel anglers so the decent Chub now stay hidden until dusk, only the smaller fish feeding during day light. . . . Then it's like someone has hit a switch.

[Guest tigger]

If Chub are so active at night I can't weigh up why when out at night in pursuit of Barbel I have never hooked up with a Chub. I was using Halibut pellet, Luncheon, sweetcorn and even cheese which as everyone knows are good Chub baites. I must admit I'm surprised that between me and several of my friends not one of us has had a Chub at night whilst after Barbel and we fished all through the night until the sun was well up. As you say Andrew each river is different.

[peter mccue]

I've found Conditions dictate the success of day or night fishing for Chub. Low & clear water in winter or Summer, have nearly always produced the best Chubbing after dark in my experience, whereas unsurprisingly, colour in the river produces the best fishing during the day.

 

Generally, the first couple of hours into dark seem to be the best, often providing much bigger than average Chub. The feeding spells do seem to be a lot shorter after dark though.

 

As to baits, you can catch Chub on everything edible, but for sheer consistency, night or day, clear or coloured water you can't beat breadflake. Tiggers comments are interesting, my local stretch of the Swale holds a lot of Chub & Barbel, & I to have little bother with the Chub when fishing pellets, meat etc, but put a great chunk of breadflake on & old rubberlips appears as if by magic!