THE CHUB AND CHUB FISHING 

 and young rats. The most artistic way to fish for chub is with trout fly, 

 rod and tackle. On a hot still summer or autumn day, when you can see 

 the chub sailing about quietly close to the surface near the opposite bank, 

 rising slowly now and then at some fly or other insect, you can do as dear 

 old Walton did, pick out the biggest, and if without scaring him you drop 

 your fly or grasshopper or other bait an inch or two in front of him, he 

 will, as Walton says, infallibly take the bait, whether you cast it from 

 a distance, or, where overhanging boughs make that impossible— dap 

 or dib it on the surface with a short line hanging from the point of your 

 rod pushed out between the boughs — in doing this you must do it as Walton 

 so well expresses it, " with the movement of a snail." 



" Move your rod as softly as a snail moves." Anglers who have never 

 troubled to read Walton have no idea of the real art and skill which he 

 employed, though they use his methods, which have been handed down 

 in generations of books on angling. Many a time on a hot sultry day when 

 it was delightful to sit on the bank under the shade of the trees, I have 

 fished for big chub in this way as a boy, and have felt my heart almost stop 

 when the dark shadow which I saw approaching proved to be the finest 

 sight which an angler ever sees — a great trout in the pink of condition, 

 close to the surface, not three yards from your eyes. You can almost count 

 the spots on him, can see his gills lift ever so little as he breathes. Now 

 he has caught sight of your grasshopper or blue bottle just touching the 

 surface, he throws off his lazy easy-going attitude, seems to open his eyes 

 wider, distends his fins, and sails up to the bait, then, as if in doubt, 

 swerves aside, and if you have been cool enough to keep just touching the 

 water with the bait so that it makes tiny rings round it, there is a quick 

 movement of the fish and a great splash as he turns, and pulls the rod top 

 down into the water, as he shoots down among the red hairy looking young 

 roots of the willow — and it is just what the big chub does when he is hooked, 

 but in this case, if you find he is still on after that first rush, you are pretty 

 sure to have him, whereas, with the trout, the battle has but begun — and 

 the angler who can kill a two or three pound trout hooked among trees 

 and bushes where you have hardly space to move your rod is a master 

 of the art, and will owe something to luck also. 



In fiy fishing for chub on days when the breeze ruffles the surface so 



that you cannot see the fish, or the light is unfavourable, I have found 



that the best way is to cast the fiy with a little flop close to the opposite 



bank of a chub hole, and then draw it slowly towards you for a few inches, 



HH 233 



