FISHING AT HOME AND ABROAD 

 which your brogues sink at every step; a hen fish of between one and a half 

 pounds and two pounds will deposit about 100,000 very small eggs, which 

 sink and adhere to stones, gravel, etc., when impregnated by the milt 

 of the male ; like most of the eggs of the coarse fish the chub eggs hatch 

 out in a few days — ^varying from about a week in a mild spring to ten days 

 or a fortnight in cold weather. 



As regards size the finest I have ever caught or seen have been Hamp- 

 shire fish from the Avon and Stour. My late friend, Mr E. J. Walker, of 

 the London Piscatorial Society, was particularly fond of catching the 

 monster chub which are found in the Avon and Stour, especially within 

 a few miles of Christchurch; he had several over six pounds and one of 

 seven pounds five ounces to his own rod, and he had one set up and pre- 

 sented to the Society, which was found dead and which weighed seven 

 pounds fourteen ounces. 



The chub is found in a great many of the rivers of Europe and Asia. 

 Dr Karl Heintz, in his delightful work, '* Angelsport im Siisswasser," 

 mentions that in some Austrian waters it grows to a weight of over ten 

 pounds, and that in some waters it becomes almost as bad a fish of prey 

 as an old trout. Although it has no teeth in the mouth, if you put your finger 

 down the throat of a good chub he can give you a good nipping squeeze 

 with his throat teeth, which he has in common with other members of 

 the carp family — including the great Mahseer, Garnatic carp, and the 

 " Bokha " of India. This latter fish is described by Major Alban Wilson, 

 D.S.O., as even a better fighter than the Mahseer — he caught them in the 

 Dihong or Tsanpo River during the Abor Expedition of 1912. 



BAITS FOR CHUB 



In England one does not as a rule fish for chub with a live fish, but I 

 have caught them occasionally when paternostering for perch with a live 

 minnow, and also when spinning a natural minnow for trout in the Eden, 

 in Cumberland, and elsewhere. Chub should be kept down as much as 

 possible in a trout stream, as he is a greedy eater, and haunts the spawning 

 redds of both trout and salmon. Although some baits are better than others 

 I know no fish which is so catholic in his tastes — ^any kind of fly, natural 

 or artificial, small or large, any kind of worm, frog, newt, slug, grass- 

 hopper, paste, fruit berry, shrimp, prawn, crayfish, beetle, grub, cock- 

 chafer, a just hatched small bird which has fallen out of a nest, even mice 

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