28 A BOOK ON ANGLING 



six pounds in the Thames, and have heard of them of seven 

 or eight pounds. The chub is rather an omnivorous fish, and 

 may be taken in almost any way ; he will rise freely at a fly, 

 will run equally at a spinning-bait,* or a live minnow ; at 

 slugs, worms, snails, frogs, greaves, pastes, and particularly 

 cheese, he is a perfect glutton. 



About June chub go upon the shallows to clean themselves ; 

 the tail of a pool, where there is a sharpish stream, is a favourite 

 place for them. Here they may be taken in some good numbers 

 with a good rough palmer or alder fly, provided the angler 

 gives them a rest for every two or three fish which he takes, as 

 they are a very shy fish, and easily alarmed. Later on, as 

 the season gets warmer, they retire to deep holes, or under 

 banks, large stumps, roots, old campshots, or beneath over- 

 hanging boughs ; these last are usually a sure find, for there 

 they lie on the watch for any insect that may drop from the 

 branches above into their ever-ready jaws ; and nothing 

 living that is small enough comes amiss to them, for chub 

 will take cockchafers, humblebees, wasps, palmers, and 

 caterpillars of all kinds beetles, slugs, and snails most raven- 

 ously. I know of no pleasanter way of fishing for chub, on a 

 warm summer evening, than drifting quietly along just within 

 a long cast of the boughs, having on for a bait a large rough 

 red or black palmer, or, if they rise not well to these, an 

 imitation bumblebee, of which a cut may be seen in Plate IX, 

 Fig. 4. page 211, if the fish are inclined to rise at all, one of 

 these lures will seldom fail to kill ; the alder, or the cinnamon, 

 or any large trout fly will also kill well, and casting in as far 

 under the boughs as may be practicable. When the chub 

 rises to the fly, the angler must be a bungler indeed who 

 neglects to stick his hook into his huge leathern portmanteau 

 of a mouth. He fights well for a minute, but does not last, 

 for after his first run he is soon subdued. The above is the 

 pleasantest way of fishing for chub, but not the most killing, 

 particularly for large fish. A better plan is to use a stiff 

 double-handed fly rod and a single perch hook ; on this stick the 

 head of a lob worm, or a lump of greaves, or a bunch of gentles, 

 and cast it like a fly towards the boughs, bank, or campshot, 

 and let it sink to mid-water, working it towards you, and at 



* I have frequently, when spinning for trout, taken chub of four pounds 

 weight and upwards, to my considerable disgust and disappointment ; and 

 how I have anathematised them for taking the salmon fly, just when some 

 salmon has shown himself on the Wye, where they abound, I hardly like to 

 recall. F. F. 



