Fishbone wrote:Does anyone know how far a chub travels in a river. If, lets say he lives in a root system beneath a tree does he spend his entire life within 20 metres of this spot or can he migrate hundreds of yards or more up and down stream?
Dan
This really is a very interesting post and one that is going to attract a variety of answers because I believe that the habits of chub can vary during the fish's development, from river to river and during the seasons.
When I lived in the UK, I fished for chub a great deal in a number of different rivers and a wide variety of swims. In many places, I chose my swim on what I knew about chub and I learned a lot of that on the Upper Great Ouse where it was so easy to watch them.
Something that first made me wonder about their habits was the fact that there were swims in which I never caught small chub. Generally, if I caught a chub in particular swim, it was a good one. There were other swims in which I never caught a good chub, but I might get several small ones. There was an area in which there was always a shoal of very small chub and so I began to watch them. After a couple of seasons, I began to realise that the biggest fish in that shoal always seemed to be the same size. The numbers of the biggest might change, but the size seemed to remain pretty much the same despite the fact there was plenty of food available and the chub seemed to grow quickly. It didn't take too long to realise that when the chub in that shoal reached a certain size, they moved onto somewhere new. There seemed to be a couple of possible reasons - safety or food supply. As it was the biggest that appeared to be moving, I assumed that they were in a place at which the food required by smaller chub was being delivered. Now, I never really discovered where those chub ranging from about 8ozs to 1lb 8ozs went. I was not interested in chub of that size and I really wasn't greatly interested in investigating the enigma any further at the time. However, there were other things that did interest me and some of them defied a logic I had assumed.
The shallows were always a good place for chub and floating breadcrust could often be relied upon to take a few of them. Initially, I assumed that the biggest chub would be at the head of the queue when it came to food, but it didn't work out that way. The bigger chub always seemed to be at the back of the queue and I realised that they were favouring the deeper water at the end of the shallows - they liked the safety of the deeper water and were happy to allow the smaller chub expose them selves to possible predators in the very shallow water. In the deep runs between the bank and bulrushes the reverse was true, the big chub were at the head of the queue and they could be caught providing they could be tempted with a bait which was not always an easy exercise on the Upper Ouse.
There were swims that only ever seemed to hold big chub - the typical mess of tree roots etc. but even then, they did not always hold the same fish. Perhaps on occasions there was more than one fish in them but I never saw that in those I was able to look into. I have seen huge chub in some of such swims, but sadly the days on which I got a chub out of one of them, one of the huge ones was never at home.
So far this has been more of a discourse on chub of the Upper Ouse than an answer to your question, but it does indicate that chub even on a small river will change their habitat during their development and while situations like those I have described may not be closely spaced something like them will exist over distances and chub are likely to move around until they find exactly what they want. For example, weir pools are one of their favourite places. There is often depth for safety, a constant supply of food and the water is highly oxygenated. The fish in such pools are constantly moving, both backwards and forwards and side to side. Fish in such areas seem to prefer a moving bait and so a rolling ledger is often more productive than a stationary bait.
Probably the biggest movers though are the chub in the wide, open and featureless stretches of river. I have caught plenty of chub in such venues, but I have never been able to understand just why the chub should be there. There was such a stretch above the weir at Lavendon Mill Farm near Newport Pagnall. The river below the weir looked to be typical chub water and, in reality, it was. I caught a lot of good chub there. The stretch above the weir was featureless, but I caught just as many chub there though, I must add, only in the winter.
I really don't know whether any of this helps you with your question, but one thing to remember, fish like situations in which they get the maximum amount of food for the minimum amount of energy expended and also all fish (especially chub) like such a situation in which they feel safe. So I think that it is safe to assume that if you find the kind of place chub are known to favour, they will hold chub even if the chub have had to move some distance to get to it.
