By Geoff Hadley
The fight had been short, brutal, and intense. My tackle had been tested to its very limit but there, in my net, lay the fish I had been after for weeks. A chub; a big one, a giant compared to almost every other fish I had seen in this tiny suburban river since I’d begun fishing it almost a year previously.
I first became aware that there might be a big chub tucked away in this particular swim back in late June when, on a whim, I dropped onto this little stretch of urban river during a break between gardening jobs.
With my #4wt outfit (Drift XL 9ft 6in and matching River & Stream reel, with a Featherdown Floater line) a 12ft leader and a size 12 cdc and elk dry fly I set about plundering the little river's population of dace and small chub.
Having taken a couple of fish from a particularly snaggy bend swim, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a subsurface movement under an overhanging tree to my left, followed by a wallowing bulge in the surface. Thinking it was just the sort of spot a big chub would hang out in I put several casts across to the lair; all but the last were ignored and the fish that did eventually take my fly was nothing more than the average half pounders I'd been catching as standard. I got to wondering if what I'd seen had just been a moorhen pootling through...
A couple of weeks later I returned to the swim with Leeda/Wychwood's videographer, Neil Golden in tow. We were filming a promotional video with a slant towards fly fishing for coarse fish. It'll be out in June for one and all to see and I’m really looking forward to watching the finished film!
This time I'd set up a duo rig and soon I'd taken both chub and grayling and much of the video was in the can. Remembering the bulge in the water I'd seen previously I put a cast across to the snag again. My flies travelled through the now somewhat shallower swim (remember how hot it was in mid-July?) unmolested until they were almost touching the start of the snag and I had to draw them back towards me.
As soon as the dry fly, a Retirer sedge with a slightly muddled head, began to drag across the current a dark shadow materialised below and began to track the fly back towards me. I think the fish must have seen me in the shallow water as, just as it looked as though it might take, it suddenly turned and darted back into the snags. I'm not sure if Neil got it on film but my reaction certainly made him chuckle! Several more casts produced no response, but I knew, for a certainty now, that a large chub resided in the swim.
Another couple of weeks passed by before I was able to get back to the little, and now much shrunken river. Shrunken so much, in fact, that the river was approaching its lowest ebb ever recorded on the EA's monitoring website.
Given the condition of the river and the hot sun glaring down I wasn't really expecting much. Just to see a fish or two, let alone catch any, would be a result today. So imagine my surprise as I approached the swim and saw a shoal of small chub and several grayling happily cruising the sandy shallows and taking bugs, not just from the surface but right through what remained of the water column.
Casting my eyes across the swim for several minutes I could detect no sign of my preferred quarry. Surely it would be visible with the river in such a reduced condition? With no sign of the large chub I set about trying to catch some of the smaller fish. My tackle and leader were as before, but I'd shortened the gap between dry fly and nymph to about 18 inches from the 2 foot or so that previously separated the flies. Four chub had soon attacked my dry fly and were followed by a trio of grayling to the nymph before the shoal scattered.Pleased with this result and confident that the disturbance would've put down any larger fish, I decided to make a last cast before heading off to pastures new.
A fish rose opposite me, in the deeper water towards the far bank. I sent the flies across and waited as they tracked through. The sedge drifted along nicely then disappeared from view. I lifted my rod, expecting another small chub, and got a right shock when the rod bucked and hooped over to something dramatically more substantial! The fish kicked upstream and my rod bent right through its length. I gave a yard of line and then everything went solid. For a moment I could feel the thrum and throb of something kicking down the line, then it was gone, dead. Nothing but a solid weight.
I knew what had happened. My fish had taken the nymph and run the dry fly on the dropper into a snag then broken the leader further down against it. I confirmed this by wading across and retrieving my fly and leader. I was pleased to finally have made contact, if only briefly, but rather deflated to have been done over. I'd be better prepared next time. I consoled myself with a couple of nice grayling from downstream...
A further fortnight went by. I'd kept away from the river, partly because we'd been on holiday and partly because the lack of rain had meant the already reduced river had shrunk to a record low level (I'd been keeping an eye on the river levels on the riverlevels.co.uk website) but a good drop of rain over the course of a few days gave me cause for renewed optimism. I even tied a few flies, black foam things with rubber legs, for the purpose; and as soon as I was able to skive a morning off work I headed back to the snaggy bend.
As soon as I set foot on the rivers bank I knew it was going to be game on! The recent rain had raised the river level considerably and the effect on its residents was immediately obvious. Dace, grayling, roach and chub could all be seen frolicking in the restored flow, and one fish in particular stuck out. The chub looked like a battleship amongst a fleet of fishing boats, huge compared to any other fish in the swim. It cruised leisurely around the swim, a few yards upstream of my position, the other smaller fish flitting out of its way as it rose to take a morsel off the surface or turned to take a nymph drifting in the flow. I was grateful to be wearing my Wychwood Gorge chest waders and boots as I took up a position a couple of yards out from the bank where I could thread my back cast between the overhanging branches of willow and alder. I tied one of those black leggy things to my 4lb Ghost Mode tippet and prepared to make a cast towards the head of the swim.
So began a game of cat and mouse that lasted over two hours.
My black leggy foam concoction was investigated, followed, and dismissed by the big chub on four consecutive casts before being ignored completely on the fifth and taken by a half pounder on the sixth before I could pull it away. I bullied that little chub into my net before the poor thing knew what was happening to it and released it a few yards upstream, my heart in my mouth at the thought that the disturbance would spook my intended quarry but when I returned to my position the big chub was still on station and still rising.
I changed my fly for a large sedge, then a small one, then a daddy longlegs, followed by a foam wasp, resting the swim between casts and with each change of fly. The result was the same each time; the chub would lift towards the fly, follow it for a yard or two, then turn away and return to its station, where it would continue to rise to some natural that I quite obviously wasn’t replicating correctly and couldn’t see no matter how hard I peered at the water.
From time to time the chub would change position in the swim. It had started out directly upstream of me but first moved a little further upstream then dropped down and across to the very middle of the river, before moving again towards the outskirts of a large overhanging willow on the far bank. Whether it did this because of the disturbance from my movements and casts or to take advantage of food travelling down the differing flows in the swim I don’t know but each change of position necessitated a move on my part or a slight change in my casting, or both. I’ve rarely found a fish more challenging to rise than this one was proving to be…
A final cast with the foam wasp proved to be decisive but not in the way I hoped. As the fly landed a smaller chub made a move towards it; this seemed to galvanise the larger one and it shot up towards my fly, there was a splashy rise as the fly was taken but when I struck it was the smaller of the two fish I was connected to and the larger one shot off into the deep water under the far bank willow. Again I bullied a half pounder into my net and released it downstream. Returning to my position I scanned the water in front of me, hoping desperately that my target would return to the open water it had been feeding in. After several silent minutes there was no sign of it returning. Nine times out of ten if you spook a chub it’s game over so I was just about ready to admit defeat, again, when I spotted a slight dimple at the surface in the deep, shaded water where the chub had disappeared under the willow. Could it be that my quarry hadn’t spooked? That it had just taken up a new position to carry on feeding?
I continued to watch that spot and saw the rise form another three times. Such was the light, or rather shade, in that part of the swim that I couldn’t actually see the fish itself but the rises were pretty obvious even if their position was now much trickier to get a cast to. I steeled myself for one last attempt; but the question remained “what was the fish rising to?” It was at this moment that I remembered a conversation with Wychwood Game’s Chris Flay. Chris had been having great success with chub, brown and rainbow trout on the Derbyshire Derwent using beetle patterns to imitate the huge swarms of alder and willow beetles that had festooned the trees of the next county over the summer. As they fell or flew onto the water the fish had taken full advantage; could the same be happening here?
I delved into my chest pack and took out one of my magnetic Wychwood Hookhold fly boxes. There, tucked untidily into one of the compartments, sat half a dozen foam beetle flies. I selected a size 12 black foam beetle with a peacock herl body, black rubber legs and a bright red sighter on the top and tied it to my tippet.
Once again I had to change my position in order to get my fly out towards the chub’s new station. The fish continued to rise underneath or just on the edge of the tree cover. I knew I would have to get my fly as tight to the trailing branches as I could to get a response. For once my cast was as perfect as it needed to be. My line flew out, my leader unfurled, and my beetle fly just touched the outlying leaves, bounced off, and landed with a soft but satisfying plop just above where the rise forms had been coming from.
The chub materialised, as if by some form of magic, directly below my fly. I held my breath and time slowed down around me. This time there was no investigation, no canny follow, no tracking of the fly from beneath the surface. The chub simply lifted in the water and sucked my beetle in!
I struck, let out my breath, and time and the rest of the world drew sharply back into focus. I honestly don’t think the chub knew what was happening. It sat, just below the surface and shook it’s head against the sharp splinter that was suddenly stuck in it’s jaw. With my four weight Drift XL bent through its length I pulled hard on my fly line to draw the fish away from the snags and into clear water. The chub shook and writhed its whole body against my pressure then tried to dive back into the cover. I held hard and my rod bent alarmingly, right through to the butt, but my tippet held and the fish came back downstream towards me. I furiously reeled in and lifted the rod to keep the line tight but the chub now dived for the deep water and the snag it’d broken me off in previously. I held hard again and angled my rod downstream, trying to keep the fish off balance. I stopped the run, my rod unbent slightly and the chub kited in an arc downstream of me towards a fallen willow that protruded halfway across the river. Sensing sanctuary it dived towards the cover forcing me to lay my rod over and out, upstream. The fish made it under the cover and I plunged my rod below the rivers surface, hanging on like grim death and reeling until my leader was inside the rod rings. I felt something grate on the line, gritted my teeth, pulled away from the snag and just as I thought the fish was gone, it came out of the snag against my pressure and wallowed on the surface, mouth agape, beaten!
The fight could only have taken a minute or so but had felt much longer and as I bundled the chub into my net I let out a yell of triumph, slightly startling a passing dog walker! The fish that lay in my net was as perfect as any I have ever caught. Bright golden scales and yellow eye, dark purple tail and dorsal, vivid peachy orange pelvic and anal fins. I doubt very much that it had ever been caught before and it was a genuine privilege to have made its acquaintance.
While the fish rested up in the net, and before I thought about weighing it and taking some photos, I checked my leader and found it shredded for about three feet, from a foot above the hook. It could only have been a second or two from breaking off altogether!
The magnificent fish turned out to be a new dry fly caught pb and, once rested and released, it shot off across the river, back under the snags to where I’d first spotted it all those weeks previously. I’ve rarely had to work so hard to catch a fish and it’s certainly one that will stay with me for a long, long time.
Could there be even larger chub in that little river? Well, it’s certainly possible and I intend to have a lot of fun finding out over the coming months and years.
