CHUB JUST LOVE A FLOATER!
River and lake specimens lose all caution when presented with them
DAPPLED sunlight bathed the bay and its lily pads with afternoon warmth as a fly hatch danced just above the surface. Swallows enjoyed the free feast as they performed their aerobatic display.
It wasn’t only insects that found this sheltered corner to their liking. Peering over a bed of reeds, I could make out five shapes slowly but purposefully moving through the water. They had a distinct patrol route, and each time they broke cover from the pads I could clearly see their scales resembling chainmail and their rounded snouts.
Then one fish opened its cavernous mouth and I knew for sure these were chub, big ones at that, and more than worthy of my time. It was back to the van to hatch a plan of attack.
A quivertip rod and a reel loaded with 7lb Drennan Double Strength was my weaponry, and I was thankful that at the last minute I had included lobworms in the coolbox. Armed with these, and a tub of Sticky Krill floaters, I tied on a size 4 hook and crept back to the swim.
Sure enough, the chub were still there, still patrolling the same route without a care in the world. A freelined lobworm seemed appropriate so I hooked one through the saddle,
ensuring the hookpoint was clear of the bait.
Now it was time to show my hand – if the presentation didn’t look natural the chub would soon let me know about it.
Slowly and deliberately I got into position to cast and waited for two fish to disappear under the pads, confident they would soon reappear in the open water directly in front of me.
In the exact moment they couldn’t see me I flicked the worm into position and my eyes never left it as it began to fall.
Sure enough, two heads reappeared and one fish locked on to an easy meal. Worm and chub were on a collision course and I tensed, waiting for the big white mouth to open and suck up the lobbie like spaghetti!
But at the last moment the chub sensed its mistake and calmly turned away. I cursed quietly as I skipped the worm back towards me, convinced my chance had gone. Then I sensed, rather than saw, a disturbance in the water directly below me.
Duckweed had collected against the bank and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing – a chub hanging vertically with its lips in overdrive, apparently eating the vegetation.
I had never witnessed such a thing before, and with fumbling fingers I discarded the lobworm and side-hooked two floaters in its place, pushing them along the shank. Within seconds I was lowering in the bait, so close to the margin that my rod was nearly vertical.
The floaters made a hole in the duckweed and the chub sensed their presence. Its lips went into overdrive, bobbing the floaters ever lower, then they vanished. As the white mouth closed over them I struck, still not quite believing what had happened. Nor did the chub!
I’d anticipated trouble with the pads, but in its state of shock my quarry simply floundered in the duckweed without really testing my tackle. Happily I scooped the fish into my net, its body festooned in tiny emerald green leaves. Wiping it clean revealed a rich copper-coloured fish with a very large frame, and the scales registered 6lb 14oz. I couldn’t believe my luck.
“The chub’s white mouth closed over the floaters and I struck”
Two weeks later Wye barbel were on the agenda, but huge issues with silkweed wiping the rod out every five minutes meant that I needed to adapt, and chub were back on my radar. Despite the river being coloured I could clearly see a shoal sitting upstream, just inches under the surface. There were at least 30 of them.
The problem was, I’d come to fish on the bottom so I needed to dig around in the back of the van for a few essentials I always carry. My plan was inspired by the late great John Wilson and a feature I did for Angling Times many years ago, when I arrived on the banks of his local River Wensum to find that quivertips and breadflake had given way to Tenpin controllers and dog biscuits. As the mist rolled off the low-lying land, river chub behaved more like carp, gulping on the surface.
This was a lesson learnt, and an experience I could now draw upon. So, from a high bank vantage point I began to feed floaters, a few at a time, until after five minutes the first back broke the surface. This fish didn’t take my freebie but it signalled its intent, and within another minute the shoal was feeding with gusto.
Now for the tackle, an old 1¼lb test curve rod and a reel filled with 6lb Supplex. A controller came next, but rather than use a swivel and a hooklength – what’s the point? – I simply trapped the float between beads and stops so that mainline and hooklength were one and the same. Now it was simply a case of tying on a size 7 Kamasan Wide Gape hook and nicking on a soft floater.
With the chub so ravenous it was like taking candy from a baby, but knowing a bite was now a certainty didn’t diminish my excitement.
I cast well upstream, catapulted out some more freebies, then gently drew the hookbait back among them so it was now part of the melee.
My eyes never left the controller until the floater it was connected to was taken with abandon.
If only I’d had a slow-motion button to relive that special moment. It seemed almost a shame to strike, but strike I did, and I couldn’t help but chuckle out loud as my Uncle John did all those years ago.
“Fishing should be fun” was Wilson’s watchword, and I agree with that 100 per cent. So why not give floater fishing for chub a go and join in?