9lb 1oz Trent Chub rock UK record

A chub of 9lb 1oz – just 4oz short of the British record – has been landed from the Trent, obliterating the previous best for the river.

The monster fish fell to Trent regular Christopher Mendelsohn during his fortnightly trip to the popular Midlands waterway.

Christopher prebaited every night for two weeks prior to the session with boilies, maize, buckwheat and more than 500 worms – sometimes introducing as much as 10kg in one go! 

His swim had earlier produced big barbel and carp, and on his previous visit he’d seen big chub surfacing. 

A gobsmacked Christopher said: “When I saw the fish’s head come up in the water, I went into pure panic – it was a real monster. It still hasn’t sunk in and yet remarkably, about 20 minutes later, I lost one which looked to be of a similar size!

“I had seen a group of chub jumping and taking stuff off the top on my last visit to the river, so I decided to add more natural baits to my mix to try and get them feeding on my bait. 

“I don’t get out fishing anywhere near as much as I would like, the plus side being, when I do go out, I fish much better – often not sleeping at all through the night.”

The nine-pounder is the largest known reported chub from the Trent, but Chris is diffident about claiming a river record. “I’m not really interested in records and I know that the pictures won’t convince some people – but they are the best we could get on my phone camera.

“I had my two sons with me and none of us could believe the size of this chub, so just to have been able to catch it is reward enough for me.

“We could have kept it out  of the water longer to get more details, but I just wanted to get it back as quickly and safely as possible,” he said. 

The fish is the second Trent chub over 8lb reported to Angling Times this season and Christopher has his own theories on why these fish are thriving.

“Chub are a very underrated fish in the Trent and a lot of people catch them by accident while barbel fishing,” he said.

“When they get older they become very predatory and this makes them harder to catch – luckily mine made a mistake.

“The amount of bait going into the Trent nowadays is making these fish grow very large and they are better at getting away with it than barbel – I’ve seen them eject baits like carp!”

Christopher’s near-record fell to a double 18mm 3ft Twitch Liver and Krill boilie on a size 4 Partridge Curve hook to a 5ins Kryston hooklink with a 5oz flat pear lead. Six more chub made for an historic session.