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Chasing chub....

Ian Woods

Ian Woods

Senior Member
I had planned on having a day trotting for barbel today, but unfortunately that river was too high to wade out so the barbel fishing session was aborted.
I decided to visit another river where I could fish from the bank and target chub. The chub in this river are experts at getting into the bankside vegetation and a strong rod is needed to bully them as soon as they are hooked, so I opted to use a 11ft hardy marksman supero avon rod. I often use this rod to trott a float for barbel and have hit and held lots of them in snag swims, not huge fish by many peoples standards, but many between 10 and 12lbs and the rod has subdued them nicely. Some of the chub I caught today bent the rod round to virtually the same arc as the barbel do, all be it for a much shorter period.
I won't go on boring you about my set up etc, but here's a couple of pictures from different swims as I roved along the river....






 
I popped out yesterday with barbel on my mind. The river had been up and into the fields only a few days previously, but luckily it had dropped right down to a perfect level for me to wade and trott a float. Unfortunately the air temperature had also dropped and we had had frost and a little ice over the prevuious two nights. It was 9 degrees when I got to the river but there was an annoying downstream wind, I was quite confident of a few barbel though. My confidence soon waned after half an hours trotting and not having a barbel...but, I did catch five decent chub of between 3 1/2 and 4lb, several roach to a pound plus, a few dace and chublets.....no barbel though!

After yesterdays faliure at catching some barbel I decided to go to a different venue today and target chub, again trotting a float. I used a 11ft supero avon rod, 6lb mono straight through to a size 14s drennan superspade. It was warmer today than it was yesterday, there was quite a strong blustery downstream wind and the car thermometer read 14 degrees....maybe I would have had a better chance at the barbel if i'd targetted them today with the temp's being that bit higher?
Anyhow, todays chub session turned out to be action packed, lots of roving from swim to swims produced lots of chub, no monsters but all of a decent stamp.
A couple of pic's from the session.....



 
Nice chub Ian
Is there a specific reason for using Avon rods for trotting?
I only ask as I’ve tried that a very long time ago and found it quite awful to be honest. Why not use a float rod?
 
Richard Isaacs said:
Nice chub Ian
Is there a specific reason for using Avon rods for trotting?
I only ask as I’ve tried that a very long time ago and found it quite awful to be honest. Why not use a float rod?
Click to expand...

Thanks Richard.
I know exactly what you mean about avon rods being awful for trotting, i've tried numerous avon rods over the years and they were all horrible, soft floppy, andslow actions. However, the hardy marksman avon rods are fine to trott a float, strike etc. I often use them on large rivers for long trotting and hit fish at long range with no problems at all.
they really come into their own on rivers like the one I fished today, stike, hook the fish and just wind them in as fast as possible to keep them out of the bankside vegetation. Their shorter length and extra power make them perfect for the job. If using a longer float rod the extra length/bend in the rod gives the chub the opportunity to get into the snags no matter how hard you try to pull and wind them in. I can't recommend the hardy marksman 11ft avon rods enough.
 
Ian Woods said:
Thanks Richard.
I know exactly what you mean about avon rods being awful for trotting, i've tried numerous avon rods over the years and they were all horrible, soft floppy, andslow actions. However, the hardy marksman avon rods are fine to trott a float, strike etc. I often use them on large rivers for long trotting and hit fish at long range with no problems at all.
they really come into their own on rivers like the one I fished today, stike, hook the fish and just wind them in as fast as possible to keep them out of the bankside vegetation. Their shorter length and extra power make them perfect for the job. If using a longer float rod the extra length/bend in the rod gives the chub the opportunity to get into the snags no matter how hard you try to pull and wind them in. I can't recommend the hardy marksman 11ft avon rods enough.
Click to expand...
Cheers Ian. Great information 👍🏻
 
Richard Isaacs said:
Nice chub Ian
Is there a specific reason for using Avon rods for trotting?
I only ask as I’ve tried that a very long time ago and found it quite awful to be honest. Why not use a float rod?
Click to expand...
I remember some one told me that a good Avon rod should first be a good float rod. If you look at the old split cane Avon rod, this statement is very true, but nowadays, most modern Avon rods are designed for ledgering.

And I completely agree with Ian that trotting with hardy Avon is great, don’t feel any problem at all. Next to hardy, I would consider using chimera Avon for the job.
 
I had a couple of hours this afternoon chasin' chub again. Rather than the 11ft hardy marksman avon rod I decided to use a 12ft free spirot hi S power float rod. I've had this rod since about July but haI have used this rod on a few o
 
Ignore the post above, accidently posted it when a fly landed on my hand and I tried squatting it!

I had a couple of hours on the river this afternoon chasin' chub again. Rather than the 11ft hardy marksman avon rod I decided to use a 12ft free spirit hi S power float rod. I've had this rod since about July but i've only used it a few times. I got it with the intention of using it for barbel and have had a few small ones up to about 6lb whilst using it. However the swims I caught the barbel with it were quite open spaces and there was no need to give them a lot of stick. Even on the limited amount of times that i've used the rod it felt pretty weak, nothing like what I was expecting from a "so called" power float rod! I really have no idea what free spirit were thinking when they describe it as a power float rod designed to bully barbel with it. They also rate it to 10lb mainlines.....I used 6lb today and that's plenty for it.
Anyhow I did catch some chub today, and even managed to keep them out of the bankside vegetation with the spinless power float rod !
Oh, I put the float carry tube which is an old pva mesh tube that I must have had for 15 or more years. I put that on after the recent threa/chit chat about a float tube for when roaving for chub and barbel 🙂.







 
I had a couple of hours swimming the stream this afternoon, I was targetting barbel and did ok managing to land five.... only little ones though. I lost another because it was lightly hooked and the hook pulled out of it. I also had a couple of chub and a solitary dace. I was pleased with the result because the last couple of times i've gone out specifically to catch some barbel i've failed, only catching chub, dace and roach. I wraped up and hoofed off earlier than planned because it started to rain heavy and it didn't look as though it was going to stop anytime soon....oh, the reel worked fine in the rain lol. Infact while I was faffing about trying to take a quick snap of a fish whilst stood mid river I dropped my rod and reel in the water, submerging my reel totally and it still worked perfectly after the dunking 🙂.
I used the combination of a 14ft browning sphere waggler rod and a youngs triton reel which worked very well together. The guard on the reel doesn't inhibit casting because it's a large bickerdyke type guard.
Anyhow, enough waffling from me, here's a few snaps from the session....













 
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Ian Woods said:
Ignore the post above, accidently posted it when a fly landed on my hand and I tried squatting it!

I had a couple of hours on the river this afternoon chasin' chub again. Rather than the 11ft hardy marksman avon rod I decided to use a 12ft free spirit hi S power float rod. I've had this rod since about July but i've only used it a few times. I got it with the intention of using it for barbel and have had a few small ones up to about 6lb whilst using it. However the swims I caught the barbel with it were quite open spaces and there was no need to give them a lot of stick. Even on the limited amount of times that i've used the rod it felt pretty weak, nothing like what I was expecting from a "so called" power float rod! I really have no idea what free spirit were thinking when they describe it as a power float rod designed to bully barbel with it. They also rate it to 10lb mainlines.....I used 6lb today and that's plenty for it.
Anyhow I did catch some chub today, and even managed to keep them out of the bankside vegetation with the spinless power float rod !
Oh, I put the float carry tube which is an old pva mesh tube that I must have had for 15 or more years. I put that on after the recent threa/chit chat about a float tube for when roaving for chub and barbel 🙂.







Click to expand...
I have the 15ft version. I can’t compare it with the 12ft so maybe they are different but mines landed a good few doubles 2 of which were on ladypit to 11.12 (very narrow very snaggy section of the Trent.)
it’s an extremely powerful rod indeed if you ain’t timid with it and get it belted right over. 8lb line straight through and fully locked up they soon roll right over.

Mines done over 100 barbel this season so more than tested

I think people expect a “power” float to be a stiff poker. Not the case at all. Geoff sailsbury proved this when he developed carbotec.
 
Richard Isaacs said:
I have the 15ft version. I can’t compare it with the 12ft so maybe they are different but mines landed a good few doubles 2 of which were on ladypit to 11.12 (very narrow very snaggy section of the Trent.)
it’s an extremely powerful rod indeed if you ain’t timid with it and get it belted right over. 8lb line straight through and fully locked up they soon roll right over.

Mines done over 100 barbel this season so more than tested

I think people expect a “power” float to be a stiff poker. Not the case at all. Geoff sailsbury proved this when he developed carbotec.
Click to expand...

I've had a little go with a 15 footer, I would say it definately felt more powerful than my 12ft version.
I have a 12ft drennan acolyte carp waggler and it is every bit as powerful as the 12ft his S rod I have. I am dissapointed with the his S rod for sure.
Regarding the barbel I catch, they arn't big fish as far as barbel go these days, my heaviest being 14lb 8 ounces caught whilst legering, and my heaviest ones on a float rod are 13.4lb and 13.7lb...lots more 10 to 12lbers. I have had quite a lot of barbel over the last 20yrs, best session was 43 barbel one afternoon all being between 5 and 10lb, I was lucky enough to catch 398 barbel that season, all bar 27 were caught on the float.
I certainely arn't timid when it comes to testing the rods I have to their limits....and beyond 😉.
 
Ian Woods said:
I've had a little go with a 15 footer, I would say it definately felt more powerful than my 12ft version.
I have a 12ft drennan acolyte carp waggler and it is every bit as powerful as the 12ft his S rod I have. I am dissapointed with the his S rod for sure.
Regarding the barbel I catch, they arn't big fish as far as barbel go these days, my heaviest being 14lb 8 ounces caught whilst legering, and my heaviest ones on a float rod are 13.4lb and 13.7lb...lots more 10 to 12lbers. I have had quite a lot of barbel over the last 20yrs, best session was 43 barbel one afternoon all being between 5 and 10lb, I was lucky enough to catch 398 barbel that season, all bar 27 were caught on the float.
I certainely arn't timid when it comes to testing the rods I have to their limits....and beyond 😉.
Click to expand...
We all like different stuff I suppose.

I can’t argue with those numbers Ian you’ve caught more and bigger on the float than I have
Maybe I’m just more skilled 😜😜😜 cos i don’t have any issues landing them on “weak spineless free spirits”
 
Richard Isaacs said:
We all like different stuff I suppose.

I can’t argue with those numbers Ian you’ve caught more and bigger on the float than I have
Maybe I’m just more skilled 😜😜😜 cos i don’t have any issues landing them on “weak spineless free spirits”
Click to expand...

As I said, the 15 footer did feel more powerful than my 12 footer.
I'm just an average angler so you probably are more skilled than me 😉.
 
Ian Woods said:
As I said, the 15 footer did feel more powerful than my 12 footer.
I'm just an average angler so you probably are more skilled than me 😉.
Click to expand...
Ha! It was a tongue in cheek comment.
I’ve seen your pin handling skills. I wouldn’t even try and compete with it 🤣
 
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