Chub fishing the MOST exciting way - watching chub take bread off the surface - ADTV - Specimen Series

The first cast produced a chub almost immediately. It was only a small fish for this stretch, especially when I could already see fish already see much bigger chub nearby, but it's a great start and confirms that the fish are willing to come up for a piece of floating bread. A few meters along the river I spotted another rising fish and simply casting a big piece of breadcrust was enough to tempt that fish too. This one being a beautiful specimen in prime summer condition. 

During the summer, I'm looking for areas where the chub can find plenty of oxygenated water. With the river extremely low, large sections have become heavily silted and overgrown, with reeds stretching across much of the channel. Amongst all that vegetation, however, there are little pools where the flow continues to push through. These areas create the conditions the chub need, particularly when the water is warm and low.

Fishing with bread in this way is almost entirely sight fishing, and when the water is as clear as it is today, you can often see the chub before they see your bait. With a pair of polarised sunglasses helping me spot fish and reduce the glare, I can pick out chub holding in the margins and even decide which fish I want to target.

It doesn't always have to be long-range fishing either. Some of the most exciting fish come from incredibly close quarters, with chub sitting just a few feet from the bank. On one occasion, I managed to sneak carefully into a swim and find three or four fish right under the rod tip. It was  a bit of jungle warfare, but eventually I'm able to steer one of them away from the weed and into the net.

One of the most important parts of summer chub fishing is staying mobile. I'm carrying very little equipment because I don't want to spend the day sitting behind one swim waiting for a bite. If I catch a chub, the disturbance will often spook the rest anyway, so I'll move on and start looking for another group of fish. It's a wonderfully simple way of fishing. You can cover a lot of river in a morning, and when you find a group of chub that are willing to take bread, the action can be incredibly quick. You can often tell almost immediately whether fish are present because they'll come up and investigate the bread almost as soon as it hits the water.

Having a long landing net handle is essential when you're fishing like this. The river is surrounded by vegetation and, in places, even a barbed wire fence, so being able to reach out and safely net a fish without having to get too close to the bank makes fishing possible.

For this session, I'm using an Advanta Specimen Twin Tip rod rated at 1¼lb test curve, with the straight-through Avon-style tip section fitted rather than the quiver tip. A small fixed-spool reel is loaded with 8lb mainline, which might sound quite heavy for chub fishing, but there is a lot of weed and snags in this river and the fish were doing everything they could to bury themselves in it. I've added around five feet of fluorocarbon leader to the mainline, with a breaking strain of just over 7lb. In the crystal-clear water, particularly once the sun comes out, I think that extra bit of finesse can help produce more bites. The actual rig couldn't be much simpler: I'm free-lining a size 4 hook with a good-sized piece of bread crust.

The slow-sinking bread proves its worth later in the session when one of the chub completely ignores the floating crust. By changing the presentation, I'm able to watch the fish move towards the bait beneath the surface and eventually take it.

On another occasion, the bread catches on a strand of weed and holds in the flow. Rather than being a problem, this actually creates a really natural presentation, with the bait suspended in the current. A chub creeps out from underneath the near bank and takes it straight away.

By the end of the morning, I've managed five or six chub, with some fantastic takes along the way. They might not all be the biggest fish I've ever caught as part of the Specimen Series, but that's not really what this type of fishing is about. There's something incredibly exciting about spotting a chub in clear water, carefully presenting a piece of bread and watching it come up and take it right in front of you.

The final fish of the day comes from underneath a willow tree and provides exactly the sort of explosive surface take that makes summer chub fishing so addictive. With the temperature pushing towards 30°C, it was time to call it a day. If you've only got a morning or an evening free, this is a brilliant way to spend it. Grab a light setup, some bread, your polarised sunglasses and a landing net, then head down to the river and start looking. Find the areas of oxygenated water, keep mobile and stay alert for those unmistakable chub coming up for a feed.