Summer Chub Fishing - Freelining Bread - Amanda's Angling

The first morning started with a few hopeful casts on the lure rod, but it didn’t take long for me to swap over to bread. It was the right decision too. The chub came straight up for it. Unfortunately, an early strike saw me miss that first fish, and in such a good swim, that one fish seemed to spoil the swim too as the swim wasn’t much good after that mistake.

In the next spot, I had a tiny chub on the first cast, so small I wasn’t even sure it was a chub at first. A few casts later, another slightly bigger one followed. Persistence eventually paid off when a much better fish, around 4lbs, hit the bread, giving me my first real battle of the day just as the first of the sun's rays were starting to hit the banks.

When it comes to summer chub fishing, its really important to travel light. Make sure you are able to carry everything you will need with you from swim to swim.  All I took with me was my landing net, two rods, a loaf of bread, and a rucksack with only the essentials; unhooking mat, spare terminal tackle, and a few bits and pieces.

For this trip, my main setup was the Sonik Extractor Specialist Twin Tip Rod in the 10ft version, paired with 6lb line and a wide-gape specialist hook. On the lure setup, I brought along the Westin Pro Lure Rod (exclusive to Angling Direct) and the Westin Buzzbite lure, it's always a fun way to cover water quickly but on this session the bread was the most effective by a long way. 

On Day two I chose to move to the River Wensum. Under heavy skies, with a storm due in a couple of hours I knew that this session wasn't going to be a long one and I would need ot make the most of the time I had before the heavens opened. Fishing here used to be phenomenal, but in recent years, predation has made the stocks much lower and the fishing far harder to find.

The Wensum does hold bigger chub than the Waveney, but on this occasion, it was a slow day. Oddly enough, my only real highlight was catching a pike, on a piece of bread, right off the surface. Despite five hours on the bank, it was clear the Wensum wasn’t going to deliver this time.

One of the great things about chub fishing is that you find some action even on short sessions. So I returned to the Waveney for a final crack at a better fish. The first few spots looked promising but produced nothing, so I jumped back in the car and moved on.

On my walk to the next swim, I spotted some chub,  but they were incredibly wary. The moment they sensed me, they spooked and vanished. My only “catch” here was an angry wasp that got trapped in my bread bag and stung my finger for my trouble!

It was time to return to the stretch I’d started on the previous day. Despite the wind being much stronger, it didn’t take long to find the fish again. A small but pristine chub came first, quickly followed by a much bigger take just a few metres upstream.

This was only episode two of Amanda’s Angling, and I’m already excited for the next one. Chub fishing in summer a really exciting way to enjoy fishing your local river, staying mobile, keeping quiet, and making the most of every opportunity. If you fancy giving it a go I have linked all the Tackle I used in the video down below.  I hope you enjoyed following along, and if you did, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and join me next time for more Amanda's Angling. Tight lines!