Gerald Penkler has been on a mission to catch the European barbel on fly. In his attempts to find suitable rivers for these fish, heโs stumbled upon several lovely spring creeks that hold good stocks of carp, chub, barbel, roach, tench, grayling and brown trout. However, the long stretches of private property along the river banks and foul weather, mostly rain that increased water levels and so lowered the water visibility, in the London area made it quite tricky for him to find and hook fish on fishing outings.
Yesterday, however, he sent me some photos of a beautiful 4 lb chub that he caught on a modified Bloody Squirmy fly. He mentioned that the fish was feeding close to the bank and that he simply dropped the fly down in front of it. The fish swam to the fly and to his surprise ate it straight away.
Gerald had fished all sorts of flies to chub previously, but although they showed interest in some of them, the fish didnโt eat the flies. He then tied up a box full of flies that were recommended for ‘coarse fish’ in the UK and included some girdle bugs, his own modified Woolly Worm and the modified Bloody Squirmy after reading my post:ย http://themissionblog.com/?p=10658
On a different fishing trip to one of the loughs, Gerald caught twelve trout on the modified Bloody Squirmy pattern. He mentioned that a knot tied in the rubber tail of the Bloody Squirmy created even more movement. This tweak may result in an even deadlier โimproved Bloody Squirmyโ.
Thus far, Geraldโs caught pike, brown and rainbow trout, grayling, roach and chub. He is looking forward to catch carp, bream, tench and barbel as the water clears up during summer and will keep us posted on his catch record.
That’s a good chub on fly! I found that a fly I’d originally tied for redbreast tilapia (small lead eyes, dubbing and short rabbit fur tail) plopped down near the chub and allowed to sink to the bottom and left still worked quite well. Unfortunately I didn’t do much of this before moving to Ireland but the plop (or ‘plons’ as the artlure guys call it) seemed to be a definite trigger in some circumstances.