The Perfect Recipe For Chub Success

Leighton McDonnell makes the headlines in Angler’s Mail every winter, as he’s a master at catching big chub, especially from the Great Ouse. The chartered surveyor from Tring, in Hertfordshire, who penned the books Fishing On The Edge (2006) and Pulling Against Fish (2016), describes the approach that has banked him 17 chub of over 7 lb.

I’M ‘Taffy’ (Welsh), so it will come as no surprise when I tell you that I did a lot of match fishing on the park and estate lakes. But when I moved to within a driving distance of the upper Great Ouse, my fishing approach changed, as I decided to float fish chopped squid, in an attempt to attract big perch. However, the first fish that I caught was a personal best 5 lb 2 oz chub.

I then realized that a 20 ft rod was a useless tool on a freezing, wet, windy afternoon in flood conditions on the Tove, a tributary of the Ouse, but I was intrigued to watch a seasoned chub angler catch a 5 lb 8 oz specimen tight to a bush, on a quivertip and bomb.

A game-changer came early in 2010, thanks to Angler’s Mail. I saw a photo of Adrian Busby holding an 8 lb chub from the Great Ouse, the second biggest ever from the river at the time.

I questioned the size of his catch, as it looked too small for an eight-pounder, but I was told it was genuine. I was then told the stretch where it was caught. Eureka!

My campaign started that September, and it wasn’t long before I bumped into another regular, Michael Harvey, and then Adrian himself, both of them having a very impressive record of catching big chub and barbel from the Ouse.

I was informed that I was on the best chub stretch in the UK, and that if I was lucky enough to hook a fish, it would most certainly be a big ’un.

The stretch was typical of the upper Ouse, and the late Tony Miles was fishing the opposite bank. It had long, shallow stretches of gravel, some deeper, reeded stretches that were unfishable, and some deeper, darker water above some heavy, impenetrable copses where the fish lay.

Early findings

I started off by pre-baiting swims with expensive, homemade high-protein boilies, and then fishing them mid-afternoon, all the while spying on Michael and Adrian.