Pair of ‘7s’ tops great chub week

It’s been a great week for chub anglers, with the biggest reported to Angling Times a massive specimen weighing 7lb 12oz.

It fell to keen big-fish hunter Simon Aldred, who decided to try the Great Ouse after arriving at his first-choice venue to find it too high and coloured.

And what a decision it proved to be, as just 20 minutes into the session he found himself doing battle with the big chub.

“My tip tapped, then hooped over with a very positive bite,” Simon said.

Chub often put up a harder fight with the extra flow, but it soon became apparent that this was no small fish.

“On seeing its flank in the water I could tell it was an absolutely colossal fish,” he added.

“Only after she went into the net did I realise just how big she was – like a breeze block!”

Simon’s Ouse chub took a liking to a boilie hookbait presented on a running rig incorporating a 2.5oz lead down to a 15lb Korda N-Trap hooklink and size 8 Drennan Super Specialist hook. This was fished alongside a PVA bag of crushed boilies and pellets.

Big chub have also been on the feed further south, as Nick Brown discovered with a thickset 7lb 8oz River Lea fish.

Fishing the legendary Kings Weir stretch, Nick settled into a swim with an overhanging tree and a shallow run that he had fancied for a few years, and after a couple of taps on the tip the rod whacked round.

“I turned the torch on and realised that I was connected to a real lump, which tipped the scales round to 7lb 8oz.

“The fish actually coughed up a load of red maggots on the mat, so I had to feel sorry for the angler in the swim before me – he must have been so close to catching it!” he said.

Nick used a 10mm boilie wrapped in Mainline Paste alongside a ‘dynamite stick’ filled with pellets, groundbait and crushed boilies of the same flavour.