Wintle’s World of Angling – Soft Southern Chub?

MARK WINTLE

Mark Wintle, an angler for thirty-five years, is on a quest to discover and bring to you the magic of fishing. Previously heavily involved with match fishing he now fishes for the sheer fun of it. With an open and enquiring mind, each week Mark will bring to you articles on fishing different rivers, different methods and what makes rivers, and occasionally stillwaters, tick. Add to this a mixed bag of articles on catching big fish, tackle design, angling politics and a few surprises. Are you stuck in a rut fishing the same swim every week? Do you dare to try something different and see a whole new world of angling open up? Yes? Then read Mark Wintle’s regular weekly column.

With the famous Dorset Stour almost on my doorstep, it’s only natural that I should have a go for its fabulous big chub from time to time. The warm spring (shame about the summer!) has meant the fish have spawned early this year. There’s none of the ugly skinny chub that follow a late spring. One bailiff on the Avon reckoned that the roach spawned around the third week of March, the chub by mid April and the barbel in mid May. So the fish are, as is usually the case down here, in good shape for mid June.

Rather than head for the often crowded parts of Throop fishery, I opted to try a very quiet stretch of river a few miles up river. I’ve done some fish spotting here in the past, and though it’s a long walk, I reckoned that by travelling light it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship. As it’s one of the quiet spots that Dave Slater probably likes to keep that way, I shan’t reveal the exact location.

Far fewer anglers are getting monster chub than some would have you believe

I sometimes feel that the impression given on our forums, and in various magazines and newspapers, is that one only has to turn up and fish the Stour to haul out clonking great chub. Lacking in the gritty rockiness of the Northern rivers, the Stour and Avon must be bursting with huge, easy to catch, chub. When respected writers like Ian Welsh write, “…on the Stour a five and a half pounder is a small chub….”, and Martin Bowler describes a three pounder as a little one, I start to wonder where I’m going wrong.

Now I do realise that I don’t try hard enough for the monster chub, and yet I do spend plenty of time fishing the river for other species, especially dace and roach, and sometimes perch and bream. But I reckon that at least 90% of the anglers fishing the Stour have never even seen a five and a half pound chub, never mind caught one.

Be aware that when anglers like Andy Little and Matt Hayes fish Throop, head bailiff Chris Allport makes sure that they are fishing swims that are known to contain very big chub. Similarly, Terry Lampard knows where some very big chub and barbel live, and concentrates on those swims. Do bear in mind that there are over forty miles of fishable river on the Stour and much of it contains some very average chub rather than leviathans.

I’m going to take you through my opening chubbing session on the Stour, and, I hope, explain some of the obstacles that face a chub hunter of modest ability like me in trying to put a six pounder on the bank. That is my target for this season. If I manage it by March, I shall be a happy man. I have two other similar targets, both of which have previously always eluded me; to catch a double-figure barbel and a seven-pound tench (but not on the same day!). Time will tell.

The first Saturday of the new season dawned clear and bright. I was in no great rush as my plan was for a leisurely day on the river, more geared towards finding fish than any great expectations of results. In view of the long walk, I travelled light, armed with a power float rod and quiver-tip rod. For bait, I had plenty of hemp and casters, plus pellets, bread and cheese. Once on the riverbank, I was staggered by how weedy the river is this year; the banks are serious overgrown too, with twenty feet of nettles separating the river’s edge from the open pasture in places.

Weedy Stour

After a good ten minutes walk, I reach my chosen area. The far side of the river has dense reed beds, mostly bull rushes, known in these parts as pipe reeds, that extend for an unbroken length of several hundred yards. Although there is fishing permitted on that side, here at least I cannot be disturbed by other anglers opposite me.

There are three possible swims in close proximity. The downstream one is a wide shallow glide, only about two feet deep, with several weed beds dotted around it. Fifty yards above there is a very narrow glide about four feet deep right under the cliff-like near bank, heavily overhung with trees. The third swim is another hundred yards further up river; a classic Stour swim with a short pool about four feet deep between dense streamer weed beds with a massive reed bed on the far side. This one looks to have been fished already this season so I decided to start with the bottom swim and work up river.

Although the shallow glide is in itself quite fishable, getting close enough to fish it successfully is far more difficult. The steep high bank from the second swim continues right down as far as this swim. I could not see a way in from the upstream end. With several dense willow bushes on the bank as well, I found that the easiest way to fish it would be with a Trent Trotter casting upstream and across, fishing double caster on a 16.

The fishing position was far from comfortable, being perched on a ledge between nettle beds. Before starting to fish, I fed the swim for ten minutes. There were three fish out there; two were chub plus another smaller and, as yet, unidentifiable fish. One of the chub looked about three pounds, the other one…. Could this be a six-pounder?

How to scare chub

The brown trout

It soon became clear that I was doing more to scare those two chub than catch them. Whilst they would happily mop up my feed, my bait presentation, fishing from a downstream position, was much too poor to fool them. After half an hour, I hooked that fish that wasn’t a chub. As it leapt repeatly, it showed itself to be a brown trout. I just got it to the net when it threw the hook, and just lay there in a weed bed, out of reach of the landing net. It was a nice fish, maybe a pound and a half.

A few minutes later, I hooked a small chub, and finally broke my duck for the day with a half pounder. The big chub was highly active, but each time I cast in, he kept well clear. I decided to move up to the next swim. When I got there, I realised that I could get in the water at the top end of the shallows and wade down to the head of the shallow glide. That did me a lot of good! All I did was scare the chub even more.

It was time to take a proper look into the glide under the bank. Here, there were half a dozen chub and a smaller fish that was difficult to distinguish. At first, I thought it might be a big roach. The chub ranged between about three pounds to a possible five-pounder. That other fish intrigued me. Its orange fins hinted at a big roach yet it didn’t seem right? It certainly wasn’t very big compared to the chub.

By crawling under a large blackthorn bush, it was possible to feed the swim. I watched as the chub came in to feed. The other fish got its head down as well. Then it became clear. It was a little barbel of a couple of pounds. At one point a bigger barbel around seven or eight pounds muscled in on the feast then disappeared, never to be seen again. With no one else around on the bank, I decided to leave this swim for a while so that the fish could gain confidence. I fed it again and headed up to the top swim.

One out of three! And a trout

Weedy Stour

It did not take long to get the chub interested here, a few minutes feeding and there were three chub under the broken surface taking my casters. I set up a light stick float taking three no. 4 shot, stringing out no. 8 and 10s, with a Drennan Carbon Chub size 18 as the hook.

First cast, the float trotted down a yard and shot under. I struck and the chub steamed off away from me straight into the rush bed on the far side if the glide. All over in three seconds and it was time for a new hook. I didn’t do much better with the next one either, another big fish. I kept it under some sort of control before it did the old trick of grabbing a loose piece of weed and transferring the hook to it. It was a case of third time lucky; but the one I did land barely made two and a half pounds, not that I bothered weighing it. It was good to see an early season chub in such fine condition, well mended from spawning and fighting fit.

My final fish from this now screwed-up swim was that trout again. It had moved up the river over a hundred yards, and still had a mark from where I hooked it earlier. No escape this time, and pretty as a picture at about a pound and a half. Trout are not that common on the Stour but here and there, you find one on a fast shallow.

Finally, I tackled the undercut swim with a feeder rig. How is it that I can look into a swim and see loads of big fish yet cast a feeder rig in baited with caster and instantly get loads of bites from gudgeon and small dace, rather than the big chub. Those crafty beggars would feed all right but the awkwardness of the swim and my blundering approach put paid to any chance of catching them. I even tried cheese that they refused until when I packed up and threw in a great lump in that was greedily scoffed.

Lessons Learnt

I feel like I’m half way there. I can locate them. I can even get them feeding. But I need to scare them far less and really sort out my tactics as far as gear, bait and patience is concerned. Things could have turned out much better on this trip so there’s much to do. Perhaps I shall have to consult the oracle, better known as Dave Slater….