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 The Global FlyFisher - A Good Place to go for Online Fly Fishing and Fly TyingFish BetterFirst published August 24th 2004 - More than 9 years ago
More about: Nymphs | Fish Better | Patterns | Comment Chubby Fishing
The chub is amongst the many fresh water species | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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+  A chub |
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+  Ready | |
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The two guys told my grandmother and her friend that they were just looking not doing anything and especially not buying anything. When they returned, they had bought a cottage. The two girls got furious and moaned because they did not even have money enough to buy shoes for their children. Time goes on, and the children got shoes, not the newest model, though. One of them became my mother and we are still enjoying going to the cottage for a week once in a while.
Dough!
Since I was a small kid my grandfather Jens and I went fishing for perch and pike in the lakes and streams. We were spin-fishermen, but from time to time we enjoyed fishing for eel and perch using floats and worms.
One day we ran out of worms and I found it rather hard to find some new thick ones in the forest. I had recently read about using corn, bread, dough (mostly flour-and-water paste) as bait.
All efforts to convince my grandfather about the brilliance of the dough were in vain. "You fish the way you wish!" - He said with that sceptical look in his bluish eyes and rubbed two fingers against his uncontrollably heavy eyebrows.
We went to one of the rivers where it runs under a bridge. Both upstream and downstream the bridge, there are plenty of rocks, current seams and places with deep, slow water.
We fished by ourselves that day. Jens went upstream to catch some pike. I found a place where a big rock stretched itself from the bank into the dark water. From there I could cast my rig into the middle of the river just to watch the perfectly placed float being dragged by the currents pressure on the loose line into the main current, which gave me two seconds of efficient fishing. After ten seconds doing that exercise, I started doing other things like estimating the depth using my rod etc.
After half an hour Jens came back with a nice 2 kilo (4 lbs.) pike, which should make us a terrific dinner. New willpower suddenly flushed in my veins. I also wanted to catch at least something. It was hard to find a better spot, so I stayed where I was and fished in the backwater 2-3 metres behind the rock, on which I was sitting.
The first Experience
The whirls took the floater, gave it to the current which turned it back and so forth. Suddenly the motions of the floater became unexpected. It didn't follow the current's behaviours, but more or less floated around in a figure-of-eight.
I stroke and I felt a strong fish at the end of the line. It fought very well and it took me while to win the fight.
I did not know what kind of fish it was, but it was big and thick. I killed it, packed my gear and proudly started walking upstream to find Jens and show him my contribution to the dinner. He had never seen that species before and we had a lot of work that night finding out that I had caught our first chub. The meat was boring, tasteless, a bit salty and not with bite as we know it from trout.
But anyway, it was a great fish for the sport and born into the catch and release philosophy.
But as we were more in to spin fishing and bringing home a perch for lunch we did not go chub fishing at all the next 8-10 years.
Once were fly fishermen
It was in 1992. Jens and I had found a classic part of the river. Shallower water, streams and pools. We were fly fishermen now and enjoyed fishing trout in our local stream. And there had to be trout in this classic part of the river. It was as taken out from an old English book in which fly fishing the chalk streams of Britain was described.
It was hot, and the sun was shining. My grandmother Lis sat on the old stone bridge, reading a crime novel and watching her husband and grandson going through some of their first experiences with fly rods.
She found it so beautiful with lines in the air, she said.
I am not sure, that experienced fly fishers would have had that very same impression.
We caught lots of roaches, which were fun as they tested your skills of reaction. But suddenly Jens hooked a much stronger fish. A chub weighing about 1 lb. We caught some smaller chubs too and bigger ones as well. They were good fighters and we came back almost every year to fish for them. Sometimes with more success than others.
For some years, it had not been easy, so new techniques had to be developed. Until now we had caught chub on traditional wet and dry flies.
The last times I went to the place, the water was high, and the two methods gave nothing but casting practice. A couple of years ago I went to Colorado, where I rediscovered nymph fishing. A method I also enjoyed years earlier in N.Z.
I brought patterns, materials and indicators back home from CO and tied quite a few nymphs (a bit larger than the ones we used in CO) as I decided to fish more focused on that big scaled beauty.
Collected Experience
I looked through all Jens' and my own old catch reports, written over the last 12 years and found out, that even though we caught chub during hot, shiny summer days, we always found them in the deeper, more calm water - nearly always where branches were drawing shadows over the surface, or in deep pools.
On days with more clouds we could find them in shallower water but we mainly found them at the very same spots. The only difference seemed to be that they were not as shy as on sunny days and therefore easier to get to a wet or dry fly.
During the spring we have watched the chub going upstream in small shoals to secure the next generation, but the best fishing was from late summer until middle of October where the cold was not yet irritating the lines and leaders and the water was still low.
We have only found the chub in some few waters. Why it has not been spread to other rivers, streams and lakes is still a mystery to me.
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+  Kasper |
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+  Hiding | |
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In the beginning we used our class 6-7 rods but as we got more experienced we customized our gear. I am now using a class 3 rod for most of my fishing, sufficient for the chubs typically weighing between 1 and 6 lbs.
The leader is made to match the situation. I prefer a furled leader and a 0.15 mm (5-6X) tippet. At the connection point I place a big red or bright green yarn indicator rubbed with floatant if nymph fishing.
I normally use bead headed nymphs tied on curved hooks with a body of floss or larva lace, crystal flash as tail and a wing sack made of hare's ear and a few straws of crystal flash.
The wet flies are Gels Stream Special, Parmacene Belle, March Brown etc. Well known patterns. So are the dry flies, which can be such as foam ants, Klinkhamer and Red Tags.
Notice that the bigger the chub gets the more fish it will eat . My grandfather therefore prefers hair winged streamers.
These patterns have also proved to be effective on other species which might grab your fly when fishing for chub. The most common one in my home waters is the roach but also bream and trout may occur.
What they do not have in size
I went to the river all by myself. Everyone else had stopped listening to my tales of the secret chub. Especially because the last three trips resulted in pike fishing, bird and girl watching.
I went straight to the pool where I once caught a very big one estimated to about 10 lbs or 5 kilos. The surface was calm, no fish were rising. A golden leaf hit the water now and then, signalling that the autumn would soon show its face.
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+  Slender bullet |
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Splash!
A pike jumped out of the water 30 meters downstream in the hunt for the silver roach. An eagle hovered above the trees. It was hard to concentrate with all these disturbing elements.
A broad back of a greyish fish broke the surface 7-8 meters from me. Another one, a few seconds after 2 meters to the right.
Chub it was!
The Chub NymphYou can vary the colors and materials selection according to taste, but dark colors - namely black - always work, and chartreuse sure does look good. Materials
Tying instructions
The Chub Nymph IIMaterials
Tying instructions
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A bleak.
Next cast.
A bleak.
They totally messed up the dry fly fishing so I tied on the ant thing again - bigger though. Same story. The bleaks grabbed the fly as if was their last opportunity to get a meal. I considered making it their last meal and bring a bunch home for deep frying.
On and a half hours later I gave up and started pike fishing. The flies for pike were naturally bigger than the bleaks, so they left me alone and I got some pike.
Two in a row…
My friend Lars Persson, who is very much into pike fishing and I went to the river so famous for its pike and not so famous (any more) for its chub. On the way to the water we agreed, that we were going chub fishing, but when we unpacked our gear I discovered that Persson obviously was going to fish pike.
"Go ahead!" - he said. "If there are any chubs around, I will change the setup".
"Hm!"
I started fishing under the branches near the old bridge before he completed unpacking in the hope that I would catch the first one before he was ready. But the water was too low, the temperature too high and so forth and so on.
A beautiful small roach took my fly just to say "Hey, it is all right. Your fly is good enough."
I worked my way a hundred meters upstream before I decided to find Persson and see if he had any success. He was at the end of the big, slow, pike pool. I entered the water at the beginning of the pool, when I saw a big splash and Persson hooked to a 3 kilo pike. A few seconds after the line hang limp from the rod. It was not hooked very well, even though it had grabbed the fly with a resolution not seen "since Store Larsen played for the Danish Soccer Team" as Persson said.
There was absolutely no activity on the surface so I tied on one of my new nymphs. It was hard to tell if there were any fish at the nymph. The indicator was taken by the current and carried the indicator from right to left and up and down. In the second cast it changed its movement very little. It was hard to notice, and I was not sure. I stroke and felt a strong, heavy fish. No doubt it was a chub.
"Peerson!" I yelled to grab him out of his pike fishing and in to this exciting and easy chub fishing. He ran upstream and got the camera.
"Wau! They are beautiful. Look at the colors. Look at the scales". We were both fascinated by the colors ranging from a silver shine to a deep brass shine.
We released it and Persson walked downstream or tried to. In my next cast the indicator was pulled down in a rush. Strike. A heavy, lazy fish started fighting.
"PEERSON!" I yelled again and I could hear my own voice in the until now silent forest. He came back. It was a bream. My first one ever.
"Very well. That is definitely a good fly you tied yesterday. But I still have to get that pike" - he said and started walking downstream.
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A bit more on gear Rod: #3-4 Reel: small Leader: Furled Indicator: Green or orange yarn indicator as described in Steve Schweitzer's article Tippet: Measured so the nymph fishes just above the buttom.
Use nymphs as described above, but also try ordinary dry- or wetflies or maybe streamers. |
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Add comment Go to article start User comments |
GFF staff comment From: Kasper Mühlbach LinkSubmitted March 4th 2007
David, From: David · david·at·sunland92.fsnet.co.uk Link Submitted March 3rd 2007
I'm from the UK. GFF staff comment From: Kasper Mühlbach · kasper·at·muehlbach.dk LinkSubmitted June 17th 2006
Corbs, GFF staff comment From: Martin Joergensen · martin·at·globalflyfisher.com LinkSubmitted June 17th 2006
Corbs, From: Corbs · Corban_·at·msn.com Link Submitted June 17th 2006 I would like to know if Chubbs are a good fish to eat? |
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