The handsome thick-faced chub is, without a doubt, one of the most coveted trophies of a spinning fisherman. Desired, but often misunderstood and not caught - due to the angler’s lack of experience, ignorance of the habits of the fish and the lack of bait suitable for certain conditions.
The chub is a fish of the carp family, a regular in river rifts, deep places under overhanging tree branches and adjacent depths. A very strong, lively, unpredictable and very smart opponent. It has long been caught with a fishing rod, donka, fly fishing tackle and, of course, spinning - the most sporting and interesting option for hunting for bigheaded fish.
Among the most popular chub baits throughout the season are wobblers, and among wobblers, of course, cranks or crankbaits.
Cranks are plump, pot-bellied wobblers that have their own high-frequency active action. They are available in a variety of sizes, but the most popular and in demand for chub are 3-7 cm. Almost all models are equipped with a rattle, which additionally provokes the predator, and sometimes peaceful fish, to grab.
Jackall Chico
This 4.4-centimeter Japanese wobbler belongs to the crank class. Its body is made by hand from balsa wood and thanks to this material the wobbler is dense and has good buoyancy. It responds perfectly to any type of wiring, immediately starting to play. The winding rings and tees are made of stainless steel, which extends their service life. The sides of the bait are made flat, which increases its visibility to predators.
Recommended type of retrieving: regular even retrieving or retrieving with stops to manipulate the wobbler over clusters of plants near which there are often fish.
Recommended colors: gold & black, hot tiger.
The average price is 480 rubles.
Lucky Craft Gen Goal
This funny-looking wobbler very accurately imitates one of the chub’s favorite dishes - the swimming beetle. Despite its small size (3.5 cm), the crank has excellent flight qualities, which allows you to catch the most cautious fish with its help. The bait is equipped with two doubles with points located upward, this sharply reduces the chance of the wobbler catching on snags, algae or bottom stones. The line includes both floating and sinking models.
Desirable wiring: jerky or uniform.
Desired colors: Purple Squid 200, Insect Brown 880 or Termo Blue 878.
How much does it cost in Russia - 735 rubles.
Yo-Zuri L-minnow 44
One of the most popular minnow-shaped wobblers for chub has a size of 4.4 cm. Although the price of the bait is low, its catchability leaves many more expensive models behind. This sinking wobbler is made of durable and hard plastic, thanks to which it is not afraid of the sharp teeth of predatory fish. And thanks to the faceted ball located in the body, the bait creates a noise effect that attracts prey from afar.
Effective wiring technique: uniform, at an average pace.
Effective color : F1167-C44 or F1167-M37.
The average cost is 465 rubles.
Choosing a wobbler for chub based on the criteria
Wobblers for chub are recognized by their miniature size and sometimes non-standard shapes, different from the type of fry familiar to every angler. The miniature size and difference in the shape of the bait from the standard are directly related to the way the fish feeds and the objects it hunts for. After all, the chub’s diet is filled to a greater extent with all kinds of insects and only then, its preferences are aimed at small fish that fall into the hunting zone of the feeding predator. Catching chub with wobblers similar to imitations of beetles, bees, dragonflies and grasshoppers is one of the features of this trend.
Important! Artificial lures such as crank and fat have become the basis for spinning fishing for chub, and ultralight is the main direction of fishing.
Minnow-type imitators are not so popular in chub hunting, but they are not discounted because they have a specific seasonal purpose for their practical and effective use. Let’s take a closer look at the main features of the bait and its performance characteristics.
Immersion depth
Chub do not hunt at great depths and their fishing range is limited to a maximum level of three meters. The more usual habitat and feeding horizons of the predator are in the surface layers of the reservoir, up to 50–80 cm, and directly on the surface of the water. A dive of one and a half meters for a chub wobbler is already considered deep-sea fishing. These features of the fish habitat affect the structure of the bait, which has positive buoyancy and a gradation of depth levels along 50 cm segments, starting from a parameter of 0.1-0.6 meters and ending with a level of 1-1.5 m. Deep-sea baits, from 2 to 3 meters, differ from shallow water ones by the massiveness of the working blade and the presence of a chamber simulator in the body, with heavy metal balls.
Shape and casting distance
As mentioned above, the peculiarity of catching chub with wobblers is its insect-like shape. The casting range is achieved by the streamlined and balanced body of the bait, which ultimately significantly increases the aerodynamic properties of the tool and allows long-distance casts with its relatively low mass. The design of cargo chambers with a moving center of gravity contributes to range no less than the aerodynamics of the shape itself.
Size
Wobblers for chub rarely exceed a length of five centimeters. The manufacturer produces the smallest specimens of bait in the size of 2 cm, but seven-centimeter tools are considered to be quite large wobblers, which are used for catching truly trophy chubs, weighing one and a half kilograms and more.
Important! The weights of wobblers are in the range from 1.5 to 8 grams and in some cases, long-distance casting is helped by the use of sbirulino equipment, or the spinning angler must use the method of floating the simulator in the current to feed this light bait.
Color
Even if you have the desire and ability to create a wobbler for chub with your own hands, its final color will play an important role in the success of fishing. Manufacturers produce bait colors in an incredibly wide range, but preference should be given to acidic specimens with dark stripes in the summer and with natural silvery colors with the inclusion of contrasting red or black dots in cold water. This feature is due to the fact that the low depth of the baits does not distort the colors.
Important! In warm water, bright imitators attract more attention from passive, fattened fish, and in cold water, their color is no longer so important, due to the higher activity of fish reacting purely to the game.
A game
As you know, cranks and fats have their own factory play, due to the structural structure of the product. Chub love small-frequency and frisky play, but with a short amplitude of lateral movement. In addition, the wobblers must maintain the rhythm of animation, regardless of the influence of current forces, and start immediately when the wiring begins.
Important! Failure to move alerts the fish and there are much fewer bites on wobblers that are unstable in play than on rhythmic wobblers that are therefore very catchy in practice.
Before presenting our selection of cages, we also suggest that you familiarize yourself with the collection of a practicing fisherman who has been fishing for chub with these baits for 10 years. 25 more models.
Sprut Shizuko 3.5 g 47 mm 0.1-0.6 m.
Wobbler Kitami Sprut Uni Crank DD 4.2 g 36 mm 1.5-2.5 m.
Lucky Craft Cra-Pea MR
This 4.4 cm wobbler from the Cra-Pea line of ultra-light lures was created for hunting rainbow trout in artificial reservoirs. Not only trout, but also chub, asp and rudd bite very well on the small bait. Thanks to its weight of 6.2 grams, the wobbler can be cast far even in windy weather.
Best wiring method: uniform, Stop & Go.
Preferred Color: Kanumura, Blackko, Ore Gold Clear.
The average price is 780 rubles.
IMA Square Bill
This seemingly unremarkable 5.5-centimeter wobbler produces very active vibrations in shallow riffles. And at medium and high speeds, it begins to tilt left and right, thanks to the fiberglass blade. And this is “not a bug, but a feature” that makes IMA Square Bill a desirable prey for the chub.
Optimal wiring: uniform fast or at medium speed along the water surface, or at shallow (up to half a meter) depth.
Optimal bait color: SQ-009, SQ-002.
On average, it costs 1150 rubles.
Fishing with frequent changes of places from the boat and shore
This method is interesting because we will fish from the shore and from a boat, but we will move on a boat. Depending on whether or not it is possible to position ourselves on the shore, we will choose whether to cast from a boat or from the shore. When casting from the shore, sometimes it is possible to hide well behind the bushes. This way the potential trophy won't notice us. If you stand on a boat, then perhaps the chub will notice and will not want to peck.
In general, if possible, we fish from the shore. If that doesn’t work, then we cast from a boat.
When we float along the river, we pay attention to the riffles. We stop 8-10 meters before the start of the roll. If there is such an opportunity, then we go ashore and fish the riffle. We also pay attention to the sharp turns of the river with trees on the banks. We also stop here and fish promising areas.
This is how the fishing takes place. This is a very interesting method. It allows you not only to fish many promising areas, but also to find promising places for catching other types of fish with various gear.
As for wiring, for catching chub with cranks, in addition to drifting wiring, uniform wiring with holds is used. The wiring speed is selected experimentally. But usually it is slow or average.
It is sometimes interesting to catch a chub while the boat is moving. If you simply lower the bait into the water and slowly swim along the coastal zone, then the most active individuals can attack the crank. Moreover, bites can happen in the most seemingly ordinary areas. But nevertheless, this happens and this moment should be kept in mind.
Of course, large specimens are not always caught when fishing on the move. Rather, on the contrary, they bite mainly small and sometimes medium-sized specimens. If we talk about the most catchy cranks for such cases, we should mention Griffon DR, Hickory MDR.
Incubator Drop
A catchy floating wobbler that is good for catching chub both in calm water and in seething rapids. Almost all fishermen highly appreciated the flight characteristics of the 3.8 cm model, which, despite its miniature size, weighs 7.9 grams. Three balls placed in a special chamber are responsible for the sound effects. Their mixing creates a vibrating effect that attracts predatory fish.
A complete clone of this Japanese wobbler is the Kosadaka Boxer.
Which wiring technique to choose: uniform, at medium speed.
Color options: ACC3105, DSB3110, DSN3085.
You can buy it for 905 rubles.
Smith Camion
The advantage of this 3.2-centimeter floating bait is its active and attractive game, which will force even a passive predator to attack. On the Smith Camion it is very good to catch chub on riffles and in small rivers. The line includes both shallow-water (SR) and deep-water (DR) models with depths of 0.8 m and 1.8 m, respectively.
Wiring method: Stop & Go, uniform.
Chub colors: 28, 30.
Cost: 1045 rubles.
ZipBaits Rigge 56
Wobbler of the most popular size (5.6 cm) in the Zip Baits line. It showed itself excellently in catching most river predatory fish - pike, perch, asp, and, of course, chub. There are both sinking and floating versions and suspenders on sale. A special feature of the wobbler is its body shape, in cross-section in the form of an inverted triangle. Thus, it reflects light from three planes.
The best method of wiring: active twitching, which best reveals the reflective system of the bait.
Preferred colors: 820R, 840R, 513R.
Price: 1130 rubles.
Wobblers - insect simulators
Wobblers that imitate insects work great for catching not only chub, but also other types of fish, since, as you know, almost all types of predatory fish do not refuse such a delicacy. In addition, such artificial baits have many advantages in the form of ease of use and good efficiency, which makes them very popular among fishermen.
However, it is important to remember that such wobblers should be used only in certain seasons (late spring, summer and early autumn), since in other periods the fish prefer other baits and may not bite at all on such artificial insects in the form of bait.
Pontoon 21 Crack Jack
The best standard sizes for chub fishing in the Crack Jack line are 3.8 cm, 4.8 cm and 5.8 cm. Modifications of each standard size are both floating and neutrally buoyant. They are successfully used both in reservoirs with standing water and in fast currents. The magnetic balancing system Magnetic Force Balance is responsible for the correct placement of the bait in the water and long casting.
Best wiring: uniform and twitching.
Best Color: 021, 108, 070.
Sold for 355 rubles.
Fishing calendar by fishing season
Summer season:
- June . It bites well on various baits. A good catch is noted in the early morning and evening.
- July . Reacts well to bait. Quite a weak bite.
- August . It bites well throughout the month. You can use any bait.
Autumn season:
- September . It is recommended to use bottom tackle for fishing. At the beginning of the fall season there is amazing activity.
- October . During this period, there is low fish activity. In October, she hides in the depths. This must be taken into account when fishing.
- November . Experts do not recommend hunting fish in November. Since individuals lie in pits.
Winter season:
- December . During this period, fish activity increases slightly. You can even catch a large specimen. But for this you need to use good gear.
- January . In January, activity slows down slightly. But you can catch a fairly large specimen.
- February . In February, the fish do not respond to bait. During this period, it lives in deep places (where there is a weak current).
Spring season:
- March . After warming, a steady bite is observed. In March, you can use various baits.
- April . You can catch large specimens.
- May . In May you are guaranteed a good catch. Because during this period the gluttony begins.
Jackall Hamakuru Spider
The body shape “a la spider” is what sets this floating 4.1-centimeter wobbler apart from many other contenders for the title of “the most catchy chub bait.” Inside the bait there is a tungsten ball, which is responsible for creating noise effects.
Retrieving options: fast or medium, in which the wobbler creates intense vibrations. A water ridge forms in front of it, and “whiskers” remain behind it.
Suitable colors for chub fishing: devil red or olive spider.
Can be purchased for 710 rubles.
Equipping a spinning rod for fishing chub with cranks
For this fishing we will use a light rod with a weight of up to 12 grams and a length of 2.4-2.7 meters. If we are fishing on a narrow river, then we can use a shorter rod with a length of 2.1 m.
The difficulty in catching chub is that sometimes you need to throw a light bait over a long distance. The weight of baits is 2-4 grams. Ultralights are not entirely suitable for chub fishing. Therefore, they select lights with good throwing qualities.
We use a small but powerful reel that can withstand powerful jerks of fish. The spool size is 2000-2500. We wind a braided cord with a cross section of 0.12 mm around it. Leashes are not used when fishing for chub.
The Moca 25SR, Peppy 27F, and Sonic Sga cranks have proven themselves to be excellent baits for surface fishing for chub.
