chub

[starlight]

i think that chub wise up very quickly to a lot of well used baits. but as peter said they always seemed to get suckered by bread or crust.

[Guest tigger]

i think that chub wise up very quickly to a lot of well used baits. but as peter said they always seemed to get suckered by bread or crust.

 

 

Funny enough I've never had a chub on bread I've had them on maggot, sweetcorn, wasp grub,rush grub, worm, slugs, meat, floating casters, but never bread. I've been trotting through this year on the local small river and tried bread etc many times but the only thing they would take was maggot and they favoured red ones.

So much for the "fish being colour blind" theory. The fish on the local river aren't pressurised at all. Even on the River Ribble I've found the best bait for chub to be meat and maggot and never had a touch with bread.

Edited December 18, 2007 by tigger

[Anderoo]

If I had to only use one bait for chub, it would also be bread. As for time of day, as someone said it will depend on the conditions and to some extent on the specific river, but I'd say late afternoon into dark is my favourite time, but I've read about some very good catches of big chub from rivers near me recently which were taken at dawn...

[Steve Burke]

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 with everythjing in fishing you can only generalise, but Peter sums it up nicely for me too.

 

As it's only December, water temperatures haven't fallen that low despite the cold snap. At least they haven't at Wingham, where on Sunday the surface temperature was 43F (6C). Further inland they may have done so though.

 

If you haven't already read it, you may find this article of mine on how to carch chub in very cold weather of interest: http://anglers-net.co.uk/authors/steve05.htm

[Steve Burke]

If I had to only use one bait for chub, it would also be bread.

 

I'd hate to be restricted to just one bait for chub in particular. My favourites are slugs (in summer), lobworms, whitebait and bread, both as crust or flake.

 

One of the things I like about bread is that it's easily flavoured. Most of all though it's easy to vary the buoyancy. This means that when the chub are torpid and near the bottom you can present a bait right in their face. You can also manoever it into place, including under flood rafts etc, even in a slow current.

 

I'd add that in very cold weather, contrary to what the old books say, I use big baits. For the reason why see the article I referred to above.

Edited December 18, 2007 by Steve Burke

[wanzelbin]

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!

 

I've seen this happen a lot when trotting, and as this is my first season properly trying that method, it's about all I've seen.

 

Also agree with Tigger about meat for chub, but judging by Peter's comments it must be a water by water thing. Keep meaning to try bread a more, but so far not much luck.

 

Despite all that, my fave's lob worm!

[peter mccue]

Also agree with Tigger about meat for chub, but judging by Peter's comments it must be a water by water thing. Keep meaning to try bread a more, but so far not much luck.

 

I'm not so sure it's a water by water thing, of all the waters I've fished for Chub they have all responded to bread. However Tiggers & wanzelbins comments have got me thinking about it a little more. It could be a lot more to do with your style of fishing.

 

Whilst Chub can be caught quite easily trotting with bread, if you have a shoal of fish out in front of you in open water during the day that you can target with maggots, then the fine line techniques & the preoccupation you can achieve with very small baits will prove more effective. However, & this is my style, if you tend to fish either end of the day, & search them out under vegetation, in weedbeds, undercut banks, snags, etc where you hope the bigger chaps lay, then you're usually on 6-8lb line coupled with size 6-8 hooks, & I have been known to go to 2s & 4s!! In this situation I have found bread to be the most consistent Chub bait of all.

 

A couple of other points concerning bread, if you can get them on the top by steadily feeding floating bread down the current, then you will need no further encouragement from me as you'll see it all for yourself & that is truly great sport. The other point is, I've read time & time again not to use the hair rig with Chub. All I can say is, make sure you use a very short hair so that the hook is resting on the bread, also make sure it's a decent piece of crust or flake so that the bait size is in context with the hook, then just hold onto your rod because it's coming off the rests!!!

[chevin]

There were some swims I fished for chub which produced next to nothing until the light began to fail and they ould continue to produce well after it had become completely dark. They weren't particularly open swims either.

 

My favourite artificial chub bait was Velveeta cheese, though I don't know if it is still available these days. Chub in every water seemed to love it, and I was surprised to see it on sale in Maine so I bought a pack and went chub fishing on the Moose Head River. I had a two pounder on my very first cast, being as no one there fishes for chub, I wouldn't think that they would have ever seen it before. However, a correctly worked crayfish - especially if it was a softie - was my favourite bait in rivers that had long shallow runs between reeds and rushes.