Over recent seasons, writers on barbel and chub fishing – and I am as guilty as anyone – have perhaps placed far too much emphasis on bait. Most queries I receive on fishing for those two species ask for advice on bait recipes, baiting principles and so on. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I was asked a question about watercraft!  It is interesting to scroll down the topics on the various Internet angling sites to find further evidence of this. Many anglers bemoan the fact that they have not been able to catch fish on supposedly good baits and therefore the baits must be crap and the claims made for them hype or downright lies. Let me take just one example. A recent topic discussed John Baker’s Frost and Flood – a product I know well. If correctly applied, this is an absolutely superb fish catcher, as I know from my own results and the results of friends. However, there appeared a general consensus on the site that the bait was over-hyped. Interestingly, not one message assigned any blame to the angler; the lack of success was, without contradiction, directly attributed to the bait. 

Golden rules
So let us put bait into its proper perspective. When I sat with Dick Walker in his hut on the upper Ouse in the summer of 1972, discussing the basic principles of big-fish hunting, he outlined what he called his five golden rules, in order of their importance. These were…
1) First find your fish.
2) Having found them, don’t scare them.
3) Fish for them at the right time
4) Fish for them in the right way
5) Choose the right bait.
If we expand on these rules a little; the first obviously relies on observation and, if that is not possible, watercraft. The second is self explanatory, but can include an element of swim preparation to allay suspicion. The third implies knowledge of our quarry, for instance making our concerted efforts for roach and barbel at dusk, bream at night and so on. The fourth also implies knowledge of feeding habits under certain conditions, for instance fishing for tench at dawn laying on with a big bait and switching to the lift float with a small bait as the sun gets higher in the sky. Fifth and last is bait, which assumes minor importance if you’ve got the first four right!

When I outlined these principles to a group of anglers recently, they jumped on me immediately, figuratively speaking, saying that in my book Elite Barbel I had attributed my success with the big Kickles barbel to a special bait, and therefore I was contradicting myself. However, that is not true. All the anglers concerned had been guilty of the same oversight, by focusing on the bait itself rather than for the reasons for using the bait. In the book, I outlined the major problem with the winter fishing at Kickles, which was location of the fish. In other words, Dick Walker’s first golden rule, first find your fish. With so much water to search and so few barbel, dropping on the right swim by conventional tactics was a sheer lottery. Having conducted my special bait experiments at Adams Mill in the summer, where observation of the barbel's response was easy, I knew that my bait would be another weapon in my location armoury, together with painstaking plumbing to find interesting areas to place the bait. When my serious campaign began at Kickles Farm in the early winter of 2000, I knew I had a bait that would attract fish from as much as forty yards away, and this had to improve the odds in my favour enormously. I have said many times that if those barbel had been easy to locate by conventional means, so that I knew exactly where they were, or there had been a much bigger head of fish, I would not have needed my special bait. I would have caught on corn, luncheon meat or whatever. So it wasn’t the bait itself that was the key, it was the bait’s role in the location process that was vital. It is obvious to me that a lot of anglers have totally missed that point and there seems a common misconception that somehow finding the magic bait will start putting fish on the bank, without having to bother with the onerous job of location. Such a bait does not exist!

As we are now approaching winter, the time par excellence for chubbing, let me redress the balance and talk solely about the art of watercraft. I will not mention the word bait again. What follows is a précis of a chapter in my book My Way with Chub about reading a winter chub river. For those of you who have the book, either the original or the recent re-release from Little Egret Press, I apologise. For those who do not have the book, or are too tight to buy one(!), read on.

Winter rivers
So, faced with a winter river, where do we start. First, if you’ve been on the river through the summer you will certainly have knowledge of areas the chub colonised then, and good summer swims will be equally reliable in winter, unless conditions force the fish to move out. When they do move, especially in flood conditions, they only move as far as they need to find comfortable accommodation. They will be looking for a position nearby where flow speeds are roughly equivalent to those they are used to, with absence of turbulence.

There is an important point to make here about those swims so beloved of chub anglers everywhere, the raft or overhanging tree. These swims are obviously well proven chub producers in the winter. However, not all such swims containing summer chub will be good winter swims, as the flow characteristics must still be to the chubs liking. If higher water creates uncomfortable turbulence, the fish will move out. As I've often said, a poor swim will still be a poor swim if there is a tree hanging over it! This is a trap I see a lot of chub anglers falling into. In our days on the Warwickshire Leam, Trefor and I rarely fished the rafts, because most of them were vastly inferior swims to the open glides. Other anglers, following our footsteps, invariably concentrated on the rafts and fared very poorly. When you look at a winter raft, try to imagine it without the foliage. Are the current and surface characteristics to the chubs liking, and would you still fish it. If the answer is yes, then the foliage has just transformed a very good swim into an excellent one.

If you know the summer river well, you have a head start when winter conditions arrive, but many anglers never go near a river until winter, and it is they who need to develop the ability to read the water. Let,s see how we go about it.
If we study the set of the various flows of a river at winter level, it soon becomes apparent that what initially appears to be of uniform flow from bank to bank is actually anything but. The most untrained eye soon finds that there is a great variety of current speeds, with regular divisions between fast and slower water. Over thirty years ago, I gave the angling world the definition "crease", a word that has now come into common use in describing these areas. Of all features, these are among the most important to note as regards chub location.

Vital clues
Ignoring actual flow rates, the water surface gives vital clues to the sub surface geography. One of the most common observations is that certain areas are running smoothly, while others are constantly or intermittently turbulent. This turbulence can vary from minor rippling to heavy boiling, and obviously the disturbance has to be a reflection of underwater irregularities. A constant boil or deep vortex is caused by the shelving up of the river bed or large obstruction, such as a boulder or tree stump. An upwardly shelving bottom, often accompanied by a diversion of flow if the bottom gravel is angled, usually results in the start of the turbulence being a hot spot, as chub will feed on the natural food trap that the slope creates. This, however, is very dependent on current speed, coupled with smoothness of flow. If the current is fierce enough to result in broken, boiling water, chub will rarely tolerate it. The only way to find out is by fishing a bait hard against the slope. If there are chub there, a bite should not be long in coming.

Constantly broken or boiling water, caused by large bottom debris, is rarely worth a second look. The boils and vortices caused by such obstructions are largely avoided by chub. The only exception is an area where a large boulder or similar rests on otherwise smooth gravel. In this case, the lee of the boulder, which often exhibits a slight depression caused by current action, could harbour fish. An upstream presentation is vital for areas of this kind, landing the bait right behind the obstruction.

It is important to differentiate between heavily broken water caused by large debris and the gentler ripple of shallows. The surface of shallow water will ripple even if the bottom is quite fine gravel containing small stones. Depressions in the river bed in extensive shallows can be excellent chub holding areas and what you look for here are smooth areas of surface amongst the ripple. Do not ignore what appears to be too small a depression. I have made more catches of three or four fish than I care to remember from river bed depressions no more than a couple of yards long. This is a very important point. If such a depression is located in a long stretch of otherwise shallow water, it can be a natural holding spot for many fish, especially in high or flood conditions, when it could contain the bulk of the fish population of the immediate vicinity.

Intermittent undulations indicate weed beds of one type or another. Submerged rushes will cause variable surface ripple, but much more broken than the ripple over gravel shallows. Also, at normal height at least, the odd rush stem will usually break surface. A large rush bed will often split the flow, creating two of my favourite swim types. Firstly, the roots hold back the central water, creating a lee of slacker water downstream, before the two separated flows rejoin. Slacks created behind weed beds in this manner are among the most reliable chub swims of them all. Second, of course, the diversion of flow across river creates inviting creases.

Streamer weed gives much greater variation of surface activity, as the long tresses undulate in the flow. The water will run quite smoothly for a while, and then boil for a few seconds as the weed rises to just under the surface. Just as suddenly, the boil will subside. A deadly method of taking chub is to place a bait right under the trailing fronds. Cast upstream of and further across from the boil, such that the bait alights on clean gravel between the beds of ranunculus, and the bait should settle in the correct place. The faster the flow, and the deeper the water, the further upstream of the boil you will need to cast to allow for the current speed.

Streamer difficulty
There is no doubt that locating chub in streamer weed gives most anglers the greatest difficulty. Some of the best chub rivers have long stretches adorned with ranunculus and we must be able to interpret the surface signals if we are going to get the best from our winter chubbing. Before starting fishing, spend a few minutes just looking and making mental notes of the various surface characteristics. You will see many places where the water boils and then flattens, as the weed undulates in the stream. But what you are looking for are those narrow areas of surface which are constantly smooth, without boils or vortices. These indicate smooth, clean gravel between beds of streamer and these are where the bait should be presented. With the correct link weight, the bait can then slowly roll round and settle under the adjacent streamer fronds. For this fishing, the further upstream of the actual fishing area you sit, the shallower the line angle and the less pressure on the rod top or quivertip. This is specially important in high or flood conditions.

As an aside, it always makes me smile when I see advocated, for fishing across heavy flows, having the rod pointing in the air like a Polaris missile. Watching the rod top must be a right pain in the neck, literally. It is, they say, to "keep as much line out of the water as possible". This totally ignores the fact that, whether the rod is high or low, fishing across current sees the line "side-on" to the flow. This is what creates the most pressure. If you can achieve a presentation whereby the line is lying longitudinally along the line of the flow, or as close to that as possible, the pressure is reduced to a minimum. Therefore sit as far upstream in these conditions as the swim geography will allow, shallow your line angle, and you won't have to sit staring at the sky all day! But, I digress.

Another cracking swim type is where the main flow suddenly diverts across river, caused principally by a shelving gravel bank. Where the current is steady a hot spot is created, as food items drifting downstream are diverted across river by the shelf in a fairly narrow band. Chub take advantage of such easy pickings.

Crease swims
The same comments apply to crease swims. There are numerous causes of such swims, including bankside projections, tree stumps, bays, feeder streams, bends in the river, cattle drinks, weed beds, fence posts and so on. Under normal conditions, the junction between the two flows is the most reliable area to fish. This potted treatise on winter river watercraft can be summed up in one simple sentence. If you locate an area of evenly paced flow, with an oily smooth surface, there is an excellent chance you will have found chub. The cause of the swim, or its depth, is largely irrelevant. Obviously, these factors will determine the approach to actually fishing the area, but the prime problem of chub location has been solved.

What I have deliberately left until last is that stretch or river that is least interesting to look at but of supreme interest to the man after big chub, which is the straight, deep, sluggish stretch with no particular feature to commend one swim from another, and where the current is uniform from bank to bank. Such a stretch cannot be ignored as results prove that it will often harbour the biggest fish.

On a stretch with a distinct lack of features, it is vitally important to locate those that are present, as they could attract the bulk of the chub population. There could, for instance, be an area of fallen branches, a low growing bush at the water line or entry of a small side stream or land drain. There may be an area of undercut bank or a marginal flow diversion behind a section of collapsed bank. I have even known a shoal of chub colonise a near bank area where long grass overhangs. Any feature of this type is worth investigation.

Marginal bushes are important pointers, even when their foliage does not actually hang over the water, for two reasons. First, the foliage ensures less bankside disturbance and chub often colonise the area for that reason alone. Secondly, bush root systems, specially hawthorn and blackthorn, often lead to bank undercutting. I used to fish such a swim on a very featureless stretch of the Leam where the undercut was several feet deep. Other anglers fished the swim by placing baits a few feet out from the branches of the blackthorn and caught very little. I used to insinuate myself right in the foliage and drop a bait only about an inch from the near bank. Many good chub rewarded my efforts there.

Before embarking on a campaign at an apparently uniform stretch, it is worth spending some time plumbing, to see whether any underwater depressions exist. Again, even a small dip in the river bed could create a hot spot, as could an area of gravel in an otherwise muddy bottom. That is exactly how I found the barbel swims that led to the capture of my big barbel from Kickles Farm.

Although you should investigate thoroughly any feature that is present, much of the fishing in the areas of river I have in mind will be a matter of painstaking elimination. With a uniform stretch perhaps hundreds of yards long, there is no way of knowing exactly where the fish will be. You have to find them either by trial and error or by creating artificial hot spots by loose feeding and hoping the fish will come to you. This is where the special baits do have a role, as explained earlier.

Let me close by saying that obviously the bait you use is important, sometimes very important. But far more important, vital even, is location of your quarry. The best bait in the world won’t catch a big chub or barbel that’s half a mile away!

This article was orginally published in Coarse Angling Today