ARCHIE BRADDOCK An innovator of bait and tackle, Archie has been fishing for over 65 years, catching all kinds of species to specimen size.
n I love it when I have company on the bank.
MINI SERIES
A lifelong passion for chub I
N 1956 I caught a six-inch fish from Sawley weirpool on the heavily polluted River Trent, and identified it as a chub, my first ever. I was 18 years old, and it set me off on a journey that continues to this day. During the 1960s I spent the winters chubbing, and also occasionally fished for them in summer, when I wanted a break from carp fishing and turned to the small, clear rivers. I was able to watch the fishes’ reaction to my loosefeed and hook baits. The Nutbrook Stream, near Ilkeston, the River Eye, the upper Welland, upper Witham and the Derbyshire Derwent were all investigated. Bread and cheese were my baits, and one of the most important things I observed was the ability of chub to pick up a bait in their lips, then drift slowly downstream. I missed dozens of unmissable bites on the strike, as the fish never had the bait in their mouths. Upstream legering helped to sort this out, but not all swims could be tackled that way. The smaller rivers froze during the savage winter of 1962/3, leaving me with only the faster flowing Derwent. One bitter day, it was so cold that the moisture in my loaf froze, and my flake hook baits just crumbled to powder in my fingers. I had to chew the bread to give me a makeshift paste, yet I still caught a 2 lb 8 oz chub. In the late ‘60s, a Trent clean-up was well under way, and suddenly small chub were everywhere in the artificially
• 38 anglersmail.com
n A rare daylight picture of me with an Upper Trent chub, of 4 lb 4 oz.
n This six-pounder took a small dead roach that was intended for zander.
warmed water. In the ’70s, my wife Shirley and I often had an evening on the Trent, touchlegering with cheese. Bites were constant, with lots of chub to 2 lb coming to our nets, and we often ran out of bait. We also turned to spinning for them, using Mepps Aglia
27 NOVEMBER 2018
spinners in various colours. A copper No.3 was probably the most successful, but there were days when only a black spinner worked, and I once had 37 chub in an afternoon while spinning. In later seasons I developed a winning formula, which I called ‘Follow the Bread’. Tackling
the Derbyshire Dove, I would commence fishing at the upstream end of a one-mile stretch, feeding mashed bread and using flake on the hook. After a while, catching or not, I would move down to the next swim, which had benefited from some of the mash feed. I would
spend the whole day covering that mile of river, timing it so that I reached the downstream hotspot at dusk. Having had some eight hours of loosefeed trundling through the swim, the fish would be waiting, and this was my best chance of a four-pounder, a big chub at that
time, and a cut above the 2-3 lb fish that I usually caught. The Trent chub got bigger, so I travelled around a bit, trying different areas, but the Newark Dyke gave me the best sport of that period. Once it got dark, chub after chub of between 2 lb 8 oz and 3 lb came to my touch-legered cheese. I also had success with maggots, learning that four on a hook was best, as the bites dried up when I presented bigger bunches. When I got into dead maggots in later years, I had some fabulous sport on the Derwent. I had set out to float fish for perch in a 5 ft-deep slack, and late in the day I had a couple close to 2 lb, then some over 3 lb as the light faded. Intrigued, I put a betalite on the float, and continued fishing into the October darkness. My three dead maggots on a size 14 hook, in conjunction with helpings of bait-droppered deads, produced chub after chub. I finished with 25 of them, all over 3 lb, seven of which topped 4 lb, the best 4 lb 7 oz. Not surprisingly, return trips brought diminishing captures: 18 fish the next time out, then 15, followed by 11. It was wonderful fishing, even by today’s standards. Two of my barbel baits, big meat and particularly cheese crust, proved excellent for chub, but during my Trent piking experiments, new baits had come to light – sea fish. Sprats, sardines and mackerel were all producing
“ Sprats, sardines and mackerel were all producing ‘accidental’ chub. ” ‘accidental’ chub, and the first seven-pounder I had ever heard of fell to a keen pike fishing friend of mine, taking half a herring on a wire trace with two treble hooks. I soon cashed in on this, catching a number of 4 lb fish by delicately legering various sea fish at night. My best chub of that period was a super fish of 5 lb 12 oz, caught on a big sardine. Enter Roger Nash, my angling pal of some 50 years. He really took to this fishing, and showed me how it should be done. He settled on mackerel fillets as big as a matchbox, cut from the flank, leaving the skin on one side only. His size 4 hook was just nicked into one corner of the bait, and then fished on a running rig with a tiny bomb of less than 10 g. He’d cast upstream into the middle of the river, but the light lead couldn’t hold bottom, which was deliberate, as he was intent on ‘rolling’ the mackerel, just as other anglers were rolling luncheon meat for barbel. Using a front rod rest, he pointed the rod high, and had a betalite on the tip, watching it gently flexing as the bait moved downstream. We had found that chub are not keen on coloured water, but if the river was low and clear, no matter how cold it was, the chances were good. I
recall one winter’s night when snow froze on our brollies. The water temperature was below 4 degrees Celsius, yet Roger still had a chub of well over 5 lb. This was some 30 years ago, when Trent chub of over 5 lb were a rarity. Yet there was one evening when he had a 6 and two 5s, and was home by 10pm. Outstanding results! Quite recently he tried again, catching chub of 5 lb and 5 lb 14 oz, and a zander of 8 lb 10 oz, in just three hours of afterdark winter fishing. I caught my share, but I was soon taken up with the new wave of pellets. I’ll tell you about that next week.
n I discovered something on my pike trips on the Trent – chub also had a liking for sea deadbaits such as mackerel.
27 NOVEMBER 2018 anglersmail.com 39
•