Diary of a River Angler by Jed Jones (Images by FishingMagic)

Part 3: Slugging it out with chub

chub

If there is one thing I love with a passion it’s slug fishing for chub. Chub attack slugs with attitude, with a baseball bat mentality. One second the slug is lying there, possibly enjoying the feel of streamy water washing the revolting slime off its unremarkable body, when – bang! – its engulfed by an extremely large gob and chomped between a set of very sharp pharyngeal teeth. Still, that’s probably better than the slow death my dear grandmother used to inflict on them from a salt cellar.

The manner in which chub attack and devour slugs leads to a bite that comes with something of a shock for the angler; or at least for an angler who has not experienced the bite before and especially if he is not expecting it.

So it is with something of an air of nervous but joyous anticipation as I side-step the cow pats on my way to the short, shallow, weed-infested length where a small shoal of chub reside.

slug
Ten yards back from the river’s edge I cut off the 6’s hook and tie on a wide gape 2’s hook direct to the main line. I remove the SSG shot as I know the big brown slug will be heavy enough to do the job. Gritting my teeth against the natural revulsion of handling a slug that feels like a gob of living snot, I slide the hook a half inch back from its rear end and take a small amount of satisfaction from paying it back for its ugliness. Yes, I know it’s alive and may have some distant feelings, but for some reason I can’t relate to it. (Go on then, tell Peta and give me an asbo, I don’t care).

With baited rod in one hand and landing net in the other I slither across the grass to the river’s edge. My polarising specs cut the glare to allow me to see through the shallow water, which means I have to be extra careful as they can see me just as easily. I poke the top half of my head above a tuft of grass and scan the water, allowing my vision to become accustomed to looking into the water. The ribbons of streamer weed are easily seen, and the gravel shimmers with a myriad of lights broken by the current. After two or three minutes I can make out different gravel patterns, see some of the larger individual stones. And two black shadows that glide from one weed bed to another. Black shadows and big white mouths that gulp in any passing food.

Now, how to introduce Sid (sorry, didn’t I mention I’d christened him?) to the chub without letting them know it’s me making the introduction. I want the chub to think Sid has dropped in for a friendly chat, and not been thrown into their midst by an ugly bugger with a rod who just wants to impale them with sharpened steel.

Now I know exactly where the chub are lying I change my approach by sneaking back from the river and coming to it again some 10yards further upstream. Even so, I still have to be very careful, for if Dick Walker was right about spooked chub taking 20 minutes to the pound to return then I would be faced with a wait of well over an hour should I spook this wary pair. I guess they are about 4lb apiece, not big fish as most of us rate them these days, but well big enough to satisfy this angler on this evening.

streamer weed
I’ve got the situation weighed up, so I slip back from the river enough so that when I kneel up only my head is above the parapet, so to speak, and I cast our Sid to his watery grave. He hits the water with a resounding splash and within two seconds the rod is nearly snatched from my grasp. Yes, it was that fast, and quite normal, as experienced chub sluggers will verify. When chub are in feeding mood and a slug has the temerity to enter their territory, then god help it, for nothing else will: they pounce on it like Jimmy Five Bellies pounces on a succulent pork pie.

The fight is frantic but soon over, the swim killed for at least an hour, probably longer. But I’ve achieved just what I wanted to achieve and I say a quiet ‘good on yer matey’ as I slip Mr Chub back into the river.

The next swim I know awaits me is a beautiful glide straight from the pages of Crabtree. It slides beneath a hanging willow, looking deep, dark and mysterious, although I know it’s only 5ft deep. It’s a swim that stick floats were invented for, although the inventor may not have known it at the time. Residing in this classic glide are some nice roach, some of them well over a pound in weight, although they do tend to wander off on some days, or at least steadfastly refuse to feed even when the conditions look ideal. We shall see, I’m thinking, as I slide the 13ft match rod from the quiver holdall and begin to make it armed and dangerous with my old centrepin and a 3lb line.

I feel good, as only an angler can feel when faced with perfect conditions and a river full of fish. The feeling is tranquil yet exciting at the prospect of catching some decent roach with a stick float and centrepin. The following quotation from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; she, believe it or not, of the classic Gothic novel ‘Frankenstein’ decribes my mood to a ‘T’:

“My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature; the past was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy.”

Next: Part 4 – On the float – will the roach come out to play?

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