Chubbing
Chubbing is what the Japanese call their practice of fishing for chubs with lures. I had known for well over ten years that they fished for chubs. However, I had always thought it was only with flies or bait, and only with seiryu rods (similar to tenkara rods but considerably softer and designed to catch smaller fish).
Also, I had known for almost ten years that chubs would hit lures but I had always thought of chubs as a bycatch when fishing for trout. While I have thought for years that creek chubs were underrated, it never occurred to me to fish specifically for chubs.
Please note: nothing on this page refers to European chubs, which can be measured in kilos. Japanese chubs are measured in centimeters and American chubs are measured in inches (and not a whole lot of inches).
Creek chub, Colorado spinner, Tenryu Rayz RZ39LL, July 2017. Sorry for the bad photo. I have a better shot of the chub but it didn't show the spinner.Well, recently a YouTube video on chubbing was in my feed. Attracted by the thumbnail, I watched it. I then watched another, and then a few more (you know how the algorithm works). It turns out that the preferred lures are micro spoons and Smith AR-S spinners. I've been a big fan of micro spoons and AR-S spinners for as long as I've known about them.
Creek Chub, micro spoon, July 2019.And even though I had caught a creek chub with a micro spoon as well as on a small spinner, somehow it hadn't "clicked" until I clicked on that YouTube video.
And that's not all that hadn't clicked. When I first saw the specs for the Daiwa Iprimi 56XXUL-S (lure weight as low as .4 gram - about 1/70 ounce - and line weight no stronger than 2.5 lb) I immediately thought of micro fishing. I ordered a rod for evaluation and took it to a stream that I knew had creek chubs and shiners. However, like most Americans who use a spinning rod to fish for micros, I used bait with small hooks and a small float.
Common Shiner, Daiwa Iprimi 56XXUL-S, August 2017Even though that was a month after having caught a creek chub with a small Colorado Spinner, I didn't even think of trying it on this stream. Yes, I know. I'm slow. I don't know if I could have caught any of the various shiner species with a small spinner (this was months before I started importing micro spoons), but I probably could have caught creek chubs if I could have gotten the spinner past the seemingly ubiquitous and apparently starving sunfish. Still, my friend Coach and I were on a species quest, and I wasn't about to try some unknown method when I knew a bit of worm would work.
Since then, I have caught a number of fallfish (which many anglers mistakenly call chubs) on spinners and spoons - again, always as a bycatch when fishing for trout. Then again, I have caught trout on lures that I now know are effective for chubs and fallfish. When I do go chubbing, depending on the stream, I fully expect to catch a few trout as a bycatch.
Same micro spoon as shown above with the creek chub
Colorado spinner size 00, smaller than the one in the first photo of the creek chub. June 2018Even with all the above, I had never even considered fishing for creek chubs with lures. Now that I know it is a thing in Japan, I surely will. In Japan, chubbing mostly is done in smaller, slow moving, warm water streams. In the US we have miles and miles of small streams that have creek chubs. Some are cold enough to also have trout, and some are warm enough to also have sunfish. I am sure that many of them get absolutely no fishing pressure.
The one stream on which Coach and I had the species quest, which I know has chubs, doesn't get fished. I was told by a local, who said he once fished it, that it has no fish. Another stream I know of runs for probably 30 miles alongside a very busy road on which I have driven dozens and dozens of times. I have never, ever seen a fisherman on the stream. However, it is where I caught the creek chub pictured below. It probably doesn't get fished because it doesn't have trout and there is no parking anywhere along the road. Still, it doesn't get fished.
Creek chub from a stream that doesn't get fished.They say you learn something new every day. Well, I seriously doubt that I learn something new every day, but I did learn something new when I saw that first video on chubbing. Chubbing is a thing in Japan. Chubbing could be a thing here, too (at least across most of the eastern and central US). Micro spoons and small spinners such as Colorado Spinners and the Smith AR-S will work.
I would highly recommend a very light spinning rod, partially to be able to cast lures small enough for a creek chub to hit, and partially to enjoy the fight they put up. It is much more fun with a light, very flexible rod and 2 or 3 lb line than with a stiffer rod and 6 lb test line. The Tenryu Rayz Alter RZA5102S-LLT is just superb. I have decided to again order a few Daiwa Iprimi rods, which like the RZA5102S-LLT are quite capable of fishing light lures and protecting light lines.
And actually, in addition to micro spoons and small spinners, the rods are capable of fishing bead head flies. They don't cast far, even if the bead is pretty large and the fly is tied with wool yarn, which adds an appreciable amount of weight when it is wet. With the right spinning rod, though, they do cast far enough to catch fish.
Redbreast sunfish, 4mm (.4g) bead head fly
Brook trout, bead head Killer BuggerAlthough my expectation is that most US anglers who decide to try chubbing will use ultralight spinning rods, a surprising number of the YouTube videos on chubbing show people fishing with baitcasters. The Tenryu Rayz Integral RZI484B-UL and Rayz RZ4102B-UL will cast the Shimano Slim Swimmer 1.5g spoons without much problem.
I have long thought that creek chubs were seriously underrated as a quarry. If you have a creek nearby that has a good population of creek chubs, it probably gets no fishing pressure whatsoever. It can, however, provide some very pleasant days on the water, fishing for fish that no one else fishes for.
I am pretty sure the fish pictured are both fall fish rather than creek chubs. They, too, are underrated and no one fishes for them.
Finesse-Fishing Home > Finesse Spin Fishing > Chubbing
Header photo: Tenryu Rayz RZ4102B-UL, Shimano Calcutta Conquest BFS-HG ('17)
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