A chub just four ounces short of the official British record has been landed from a stretch of the River Trent – obliterating the known best from the river.
A chub just four ounces short of the official British record has been landed from a stretch of the River Trent – obliterating the known best from the river.
The astonishing fish was caught by Trent regular Christopher Mendelsohn during his usual fortnightly trip on the popular Midlands waterway.
Returning to a spot he had caught both big barbel and carp from before, and after seeing large chub surfacing on his last visit, Christopher decided to pre-bait every night for two weeks prior to the session with a mix of boilies, maize, buck wheat and over 500 worms – sometimes depositing as much as 10kg in one go!
Little did he know that this strategy would result in one of the biggest river chub caught in recent years.
Talking exclusively to Angling Times, a gobsmacked Christopher said: “It still hasn’t sunk in. It was an incredible fish, more incredibly, about 20 minutes later, I lost one which looked a similar size!
“I had seen a group of chub jumping and taking stuff off the top on my last visit to the river, so I decided to add some more natural baits to my mix to try and get them feeding on my bait.
“It’s the result of a lot of hard work as I don’t get out fishing anywhere near as much as I would like, the plus side being, when I do go out, I fish much better – often not sleeping at all through the night.
“I’ve had a phenomenal season so far but this tops the lot. When I saw the fishes head come up in the water, I went into pure panic – it was truly monstrous.
The remarkable chevin is the largest known reported fish from the Trent, however Chris was unsure about claiming the record.
“I’m not really interested in records and I know that the pictures won’t convince some people – but are the best we could get on my phone camera.
“I had my two sons with me and none of us could believe the size of this fish, so just to have been able to catch it is enough reward.
“We could of kept it out longer to get more details, but to me, a fish that impressive, I just wanted to get it back as quickly and safely as possible”, he said.
This is the second Trent chub over 8lb reported to Angling Times this season and Christopher had his thoughts on why the Trent chub are thriving, he said: “The chub are a very underrated fish in the Trent and a lot of people catch them by accident whilst barbel fishing.
“I think when they get older they become very predatory and this makes them harder to catch – luckily for me this one made a mistake.
“The amount of bait going in to the Trent nowadays is also making these fish very large and they are better at getting away with it than barbel – I’ve seen them eject baits like carp!”
Christopher’s near record fish fell to a double 18mmm 3ft Twitch Liver and Krill boilie presented on a size 4 Partridge Curve hook on a 5-inch Kryston hook link with a 5oz flat pear lead. This method resulted in six other chub in a truly unforgettable session.