Chub Fishing Tips - How to Fish for Chub

Chub Fishing Tips. This fish takes its name from the shape of the head, not only in our own, but in other languages. The head and back are of a deep dusky green, the sides silvery. The tail is forked, and very black at the end, and altogether the chub is rather a handsome fish, although its flesh is not much in esteem.

The haunts of the chub are in rivers whose bottoms are of sand or clay, or which flow over a gravelly bottom, in deep holes, under hollow banks; in summer, particularly where shaded by trees, &c. they frequently float on the surface, and are sometimes found in streams and deep waters, where the currents are strong. In ponds fed by a rivulet they grow to a large size.

Chub

To fish for chub at the bottom, you should have a stout long rod, a strong line (and if you use a reel, you will be the better able to fish under bushes), with two yards or more of the best silkworm gut at bottom; a hook proportionate to the bait used; a swan-quill float; and the line so shotted, eight or ten inches from the hook, as to sink the float to a quarter of an inch above the surface. The same groundbait is to be used as for carp. The best baits are greaves, cheese paste, or the tail end of a well-scoured lob-worm. The cockchafer is also a very tempting bait, especially towards dusk: no float or shot are required for this.

After baiting your hook with a cockchafer, move it two or three times near the surface, as in the act of flying; then drop it in the water, tapping the rod gently, which will cause the appearance of its struggling to escape. This attracts the chub, who are so fond of this bait, that they will rise two or three at a time to seize it. But mind and be ready with your landing-net.

The chub will take a grub, wasps, maggots, paste of fine new bread worked in the hand, and tinged with vermilion, to make it look like salmon-roe; but the best bait for bottom or float-fishing for the chub is new Cheshire cheese, worked with the crumb of a new roll, or the pith from the backbone of an ox. In baiting with the cheese, put a round lump the size of a cherry on a large hook, so as to cover the bend, and some way up the shank; fish six inches from the bottom, or in cold weather the bait may lie on the ground. When there is a bite, the float will be drawn under water: strike immediately, and give him play, holding a tolerably tight line, to keep the fish clear from weeds and stumps.

The best time for fishing for chub is chiefly before sunrise to nine in the morning, and from four till after sunset in the summer; but, in winter, the middle of the day is best. In hot weather, the chub is to be fished for at or near the top of the water, and not deeper than midwater; and in cold weather, close to or near the bottom; and the main point in taking the fish is for the angler to keep himself out of sight. A very deadly way of killing chub, and certainly the most artistic method, is with the artificial fly, used as in trout fishing. Flies are made expressly for this purpose, and of these the best are red and black palmers, and the Marlow buzz.

Excerpt from the book:
EVERY BOY’S BOOK: A COMPLETE ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF SPORTS AND AMUSEMENTS.
EDITED BY EDMUND ROUTLEDGE.
With more than Six Hundred Illustrations
FROM ORIGINAL DESIGNS.
LONDON: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE.
NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET.
1869.