Going fishing, you need to know in advance as much as possible about the appearance of the fish, its habits and fishing methods in order to correctly classify the trophy. From the article you will learn all about the chub - what it looks like, its description and characteristics, characteristics of fishing.

What is a chub

Chub (Latin: Leuciscus cephalus) - one of the species of freshwater, schooling fish at a young age from the Karpov family (Cyprinidae). As they grow, larger specimens usually lead a solitary lifestyle. He is not a predator in the literal sense of the word, such as pike, pike perch, asp, catfish, since it belongs to the carp family. The chub is classified as conditionally predatory fish - it is capable of eating fry and small juveniles on occasion, but is omnivorous.

Description and origin of the species

This is a shallow fish of a dark silver color, often with a brown or bronze sheen. She has a characteristic massive and dull head (a wide forehead is the fourth part in height), a very large mouth and a rounded body, for these signs it got its name - a chub.

Synonyms can be the names of bunts, bunts used in everyday life. The species owes its origin to natural selection and the further survival of the species in the struggle for life.

Characteristics

Morphological features of this species can be reduced to the following characteristics, allowing to identify the chub:

• body slightly elongated cylindrical, slightly flattened laterally. Adults are wider due to the fact that growth in length slows down and they grow in width;
• scales covering the body, large, greenish-brown, densely located immediately behind the gills, bordered on the free edge with dark pigment dots. The direction of the lateral line, which contains 43–53 scales, is curved arched to the abdomen;
• the back is light brown or dark green, turning into almost black on the top, the sides are golden yellow or silver gray, the belly is light with a pale pink tint;
• dorsal and symmetrical caudal fins short, gray-green with a red coating, rounded anal and oblong ventral fins - red, pectoral - orange. The dorsal fin in projection is located in front of the anal and begins above the base of the abdominal;
• the head is large, sloping downward;
• retractable mouth, wide, without antennae, lips reddish thick and soft, jaws of the same length;
• eyes are large with a greenish spot on top, located below the middle axis of the trunk, the iris is gray;
• cheeks and gill plates pinkish with a golden tint;
• powerful pharyngeal teeth with a hook on top, bent inward, sitting on the pharyngeal bones, two-row;
• the ridge consists of 42–46 vertebrae depending on the size of the fish.

How many years live

Obtaining such information on the Internet is not so simple, most often you can only find the maximum sizes and indications for the period when the age of the fish is approaching spawning.

No one can determine exactly how long they live, but caution and vigilance allow the chub to live a relatively long time - up to 8-15 years, or even more. They fall into the catch by chance, and they can be reached only during spawning, as they remain in groups in the river for breeding, or having extensive experience in fishing and knowing the habits of this fish.

Did you know? To find out the age of the fish, one can examine scales taken from different places, preferably from the area above the side line. Concentric lines that form annually and are age-appropriate will be visible.

How much grows and to what sizes grows

The age of the chub can be roughly determined by the size that it reaches by the established growth rate and recorded trophy catches.

Judging by the fact that it reaches a maximum of about 60 cm, and current records indicate large sizes (63.2 cm), you can estimate the size by age like this:

• the first year - about 5-7 cm;
• the second - about 10 cm;
• the third is about 15 cm;
• the fourth is about 17 cm.

A ten-year-old chub at such a pace should be about 30–33 cm, or even 39 cm. Fifteen-year-old chubs should be about 50 cm. Dimensions are 30–40 cm and weight is about 1 kg. Among the recorded trophies, a chub of 1.14 kg with a body size without a tail - 38 cm, and with a tail (from head to tip) - 44 cm is mentioned.

Did you know? Coloring the fish from a dark color on top and a gradual transition to a light tone on the stomach serves as a disguise. Such a pattern makes them less noticeable in the water column.

The chub caught in Belarus is considered to be a world record - 8 kg and 80 cm, unfortunately, the place and author of the catch is unknown (perhaps this is another fishing bike). In England, the record of 2.27 kg was kept for 55 years, until in 2010 he was caught on a standard tackle with hair accessories with a specimen of 3.29 kg (Trent River).

In Russia, no one saw in the catches of the chub more than 6 kg and a length of more than 60 cm, but it cannot be argued that this is the ultimate truth, as fishing continues, and new records are possible.

The figures can be considered very approximate, because the size of the fish in the wild, and not fattening, depends on many environmental factors - the conditions in the reservoir and on what food is available and in what quantity.

Distribution and habitats

Chub is found in mountain and middle plain rivers throughout Europe with the exception of the islands of the Mediterranean, Portugal, Ireland, Iceland and Northern Scotland, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Iran and Iraq, and is found in the Volga, Urals, Tigris and Euphrates basins. This is mainly river fish, but is rarely found in lakes, near dam reservoirs and in sea bays.

Important! The decline in the chub population in recent years is due to uncontrolled discharges, industrial effluents and river pollution.

The species is very resistant to temperature fluctuations and does not undertake large migrations. In the east and north-west of Russia, the chub lives in the same places as trout, salmon, grayling, and often where, due to low temperatures, there is no other fish from the cyprinid family.

This is a widespread, and sometimes numerous, species, but it does not have commercial value. Most often it is a subject of amateur or sport fishing.

Important! Slowly flowing water avoids and most willingly settles in clean fairly cold rivers with a stony-pebbly bottom and with a flow velocity of 0.2–1.6 m / s, but can overcome flows up to 2.7 m / s, therefore it is almost never found in the lower reaches and estuaries, but in the upper reaches - numerous.

Favorite habitats are under overhanging branches and among dense underwater snags, on steep banks and on rifts, where fish can rely on shade, food and protection. Often found on shallows and whirlpools at the border of mixing fast flows, in the lateral branches of large rivers, where the flow is more calm.

Video: Where the chub lives

What eats

Chub is a euriphage, i.e. an omnivorous and gluttonous fish, in its diet a wide range of both plant and animal food. Unlike other fish, it will eat year-round - both on hot summer days and on a frosty winter morning.

Did you know? Some African fish burrow into the mud when the reservoirs dry up and can live there for years waiting for the rains, so the locals go fishing with a shovel, not with a fishing rod.

From birth, fry feed mainly on arthropods and copepods - plankton, marine and freshwater crustaceans. Individuals 10 cm long feed on invertebrates, worms, mollusks, flying insects, fallen into the water, vascular plants and fish juveniles (freshwater carp, gudgeon, roach, bleak and small specimens of their species). Predatory fishing more often occurs in the winter months.

In the summer, the chub can not do without plant food, which is up to half the volume of its natural food (seeds, stems, roots, plant leaves, small algae, grains of oats, wheat, barley, peas that have fallen into the water). He likes fruits, and in the southern regions he is often caught on cherries or plums. Large specimens are able to hunt frogs and swimming mice.

Often, the diet depends on the time of year. In spring, meltwater is washed off into the rivers of worms, during the flight of beetles in early summer, careless insects become a tasty food. In July, when molting crustaceans, the chub often guards the coveted prey at the burrows. Based on such fish preferences, anglers choose lures for chub fishing in different seasons.

Breeding

Males reach puberty at the age of 3-4 years, growing about 15-17 cm in length, females at the age of 6-7 years and 20 cm in length. Spawning begins in April – May at a water temperature above + 18 ° C and usually occurs at noon. In the southern regions of Russia, the breeding process takes place earlier - at the end of March.

The female lays about 60 thousand eggs per serving per kilogram of her body weight. Caviar bottom, rushing on stony and sandy soils at a depth of 1.8–3 m, orange, has a diameter of 1.5–2 mm and adheres to the river bottom using sticky shells. Incubation lasts 3-6 days. The fry appear about 5.5 mm long, and at first hide in the shelter of stones and snags. In the first year of life, they reach 5–7 cm, fins develop by 1.5 cm, and the body is covered with scales by 3 cm.

Chub breeding is stimulated by running water, so they do not leave the right channel of the river, although they can also look for other quiet places - in a deep bay behind a spur, in the shade and behind stones, where they can hide and rest after tiring activities.

Fishing features

Not everyone can catch a chub - this amazing fish is strong, careful and cunning, always on guard as a hunter. Although culinary in many reviews it is not the most attractive fish, but in fighting qualities, dynamism and courage it is not equal to it.

Important! Position yourself as far from the shore as possible, try to hide and disguise yourself - the vibrations that you make near the water, and your shadow on the surface can frighten away the fish, and it will leave this place.

A fish that felt a hook in its mouth breaks away from the shore, unwinding the meters of a fishing line of a friction clutch of a spinning or feeder coil, goes with the flow, tries to hide in the depths and is thrown to the surface. There is evidence when, in an attempt to free himself, the chub cut the line with his dorsal fin.

The chub can be considered a universal fish, because it is perfectly caught on all types of gear - spinning, feeder, bottom fishing rods, half-boat with a float, in wiring from the shore or boat. The choice of gear depends entirely on the preference of the fisherman. The most important is the set of lures, and good equipment in this matter is the key to success.

The variety of spinning lures is very large - spinning and oscillating spinners, wobblers, the sizes of which vary from 2 to 5 cm, twisters, vibro-tails 4–5 cm long. Natural colors coincide with the species of ordinary suspensions and vegetation that are found in this water. It is worth buying floating, neutral and sinking lures.

They are caught in floating wobblers by alloy - they are lowered downstream to the place of probable location of fish in overhanging shrubs, underwater snags, that is, areas where it is difficult to throw tackle. Then the bait is gently pulled. Sinking wobbler: works well when fishing against the current, and quickly leads to the desired depth.

Such a tackle as a feeder allows you to pull large specimens to the place of fishing and successfully fish out, and constant feeding attracts a large chub. The method is to use a bait basket and a vibrating bait. Instead, you can use special trinkets that hang on a fishing line between the rod guides.

Bait for fishing in the wiring is quite diverse due to the omnivorous chub. This can be maggot, red and white worms, canned corn, which helps even with the most sluggish biting, cheese, sausages, berries, bread crusts, caddis flies, algae, leeches, beetles, snails, flies, butterflies.

The place of fishing should be fed with a small amount of cereal from cereals (barley, millet, corn, peas) with the addition of oilcake, chopped worms, scattering the float before the swim, which makes it possible to attract fish. Of course, each angler has his secrets in the preparation of the working mixture and methods of bait. In different regions, it depends on the food that the chub feeds in the pond.

In May and June, it is possible to catch really large specimens, since as soon as the shores begin to turn green, the chubs attack the coastal vegetation in search of food. You can usually rely on biting throughout the year - in the spring, summer and autumn, but the best and most effective fishing season is in the summer months, and the beginning of autumn is July, August, September.

Important! In winter, the chub's vital activity decreases, it goes to the bottom and practically hibernates, so it can only be hooked during the thaw.

The fishing autumn season usually lasts from September to the end of November, and at this time even in rainy weather there is a chance to catch the desired pattern, although the chub is not as active in the autumn as in the summer. Fishing in the fall season requires finding a good place, because the fish leaves the summer habitats (overflows and river channels), and goes to new quiet areas where it can successfully survive the winter.

As for the time of day, in the morning the conditions are more favorable, and during the day you can expect only small fish. The best moment is evening, when large individuals show their activity. But at night, being a daytime fish, it shows no signs of activity.

It is difficult to confuse a chub bite - a foamy wave, a strong splash, a push and a sharp blow that can break tackle and knock the rod out of hand. In the case of a bad hook, the fish often breaks off the hook, because it has a strong mouth. This requires the fisherman not only skill, but also an understanding of the biological characteristics, characteristics and habits of the fish.

Chub Fish

From the closest relatives from the Karpov family - dace and ide - the chub is distinguished by a large head with a sloping large mouth, a wide forehead. In dace, the fins are lower yellowish, the rest are gray, bordered by white, the anal has a cut profile, unlike the chub, in which it is straight or convex.

Only during the spawning season, the dwarf fins acquire a reddish-orange color. It was at this time that it was difficult to distinguish between mature dace and young chubs, since they were similar in body structure and coloration.

Important! According to the testimony of experienced fishermen, in places where the ide is gathering, one should not hope to catch a chub - he is absent there.

Less experienced anglers have difficulty in recognizing the chub and ide - they are very similar in appearance and body shape, but you can distinguish them by the size and color of their eyes - in the chub they are large and light, and in the ide - small and yellowish-green. Both species live in lakes, mountain and lowland rivers, are almost omnivorous and grow to the same size. Adults can reach up to 70 cm in length and weigh about 6 kg.

With small sizes, the chub is sometimes mistaken for roach, since they have the same body and fin color. Identification should be carried out according to the shape of the dorsal and anal fins - they are convex in the chub and concave in the roach.

The chub is omnivorous and able to grow at a fast pace, is a cunning and cautious predator, does not let it close to itself and resists to the last - these qualities make fishing on it an exciting activity and make it possible to deserve a trophy catch.