Chub
The Chub is rather a handsome fish when in season, and those caught with
the artificial fly in many parts of the Thames, are very brilliant and
pretty to look at; but, unfortunately, they are full of very small
bones, when cooked the roe is wholesome.
They haunt the deepest pools and rivers under shaded banks overhung with
trees, the sides of weirs, and in ponds where a small spring runs in and
out of the
, with rather a rocky or gravelly bottom. Autumn is the best
season for them, although I have caught them with the fly in the Thames
in summer in good perfection, when fishing for trout. The way to angle
for them would be to use a quill float, with a No. 8 hook, or larger, a
gut line, and some shot about ten inches from the bait to sink the
float, bait the hook with bread paste made red, and made tough in clean
hands, put on a piece of it the size of a nut, throw in gently, and keep
out of sight. Good cheese, well worked to make it tough, is also good.
They will take gentles turned inside out on the hook one over the other,
and when you have a bite strike rather quickly. They will also take
grasshoppers, blue bottles, cadbait, and cockchafers; and with red or
yellow flies, and black and brown palmers in the ordinary way of fishing
for trout.