Big chub feed in the floods

The floods which have hit many of the UK’s rivers failed to hamper the efforts of the nation’s army of chub anglers - with some of the biggest specimens of the winter so far landed.

The pick of the bunch tipped the scales at 7lb 8oz and fell to David Hyne when he went back to basics and returned to a stretch of waterway that he hadn’t fished for over seven years. And he had double reason to celebrate when he backed up his new personal best with a second fish of 6lb 3oz.

The Herts-based 58-year-old was fishing the famous King’s Weir on the River Lea and used a simple running leger rig with a piece of hair-rigged garlic meat on a size 10 hook.

The biggest of the brace came from a deep hole that he found to the left-hand-side of his swim and both were beaten with 8lb line.

“These fish are very hard to catch and to be honest I think that they get used to boilies and pellets, so that’s why I just fished a simple rig with a bit of old faithful meat on the hair,” David told Angling Times.

“I started the session by throwing in the odd scrap of meat from the tin which gets the fish hunting around. The garlic flavouring aids this, especially when you’re faced with coloured water.

“It was incredible to catch two chub using this tactics because this is how I used to fish when I first started out.”

Reigning Drennan Cup holder Gareth Goldson used the classic combination of a centrepin reel, float and a breadflake hookbait, to amass an impressive haul of chub topped by a fish of 6lb 7oz.

He targeted a stretch of his local River Wensum and trotted a ‘loafer’ float past a snag on the far bank to amass his haul after introducing minimal loosefeed.
“This is a really simple way of fishing, but it’s a killer method for big chub,” said Gareth.

“I love fishing big baits under a float and the fish were tucked up close to the snag on the far bank because all of my bites came as I held the float back and edged it past the feature.”