UK Coarse
Float · Technique journey
A bait run under a bush, into a hole, or down a crease with chub in mind. Bread, maggot, worm, cheese. After 16 June. They melt the float; they also melt into the snag.
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Chub fishing with a float is about putting a bait where they live — under the far bush, in a rush hole, down the crease — and being ready for a fish that does not mess about. An Avon or a big stick, a bait they want, and a hooklength that can pull them out of the tree.
Travel light, look, first trot through a new hole is often the one. Then they know. Open season only.
Open-season rivers, urban stretches, a bush you can reach, coloured water after rain.
Close season. A stillwater commercial. A snag you cannot extract them from and still want to try.
From the graph
Bait
Bread
Flake into the hole
Bait
Maggots
The universal bait. If you could only have one thing in the bag for a mixed UK stillwater or canal, maggots would still be the answer.
Bait
Cheese
Paste under a bush
Bait
Worms
Dendrobaenas, lobs and redworms. Perch, bream, tench and a bonus eel. The bait that still works when fashion has moved on.
A starting point, not a shopping list you have to finish. Match the water in front of you.
12–13ft float rod, 3000 reel, 3–5lb line, a float you can actually see, fine hooklength.
On the peg
A few maggots, a pinch of mash, or nothing — the first bait in the hole is often enough.
Avon or a buoyant stick, 5–6lb, a hook that matches bread or maggot, a net.
Under the far bush, a rush hole, a crease, a cattle drink. Look before you set up a camp.
Trotting into the hole, or a bit of flake held in it. First cast counts.
Walk, look, fish the best hole first, properly, before you empty a pint into a dead crease.
Colour is a gift. Low clear water wants bread flake at dusk and more stealth.
Open season. Stealth. A bait into the hole on the first trot. If it melts, hit it and keep them from the roots. If nothing, the next hole. Do not camp on a spooked bush for three hours with a feeder.
Starting routine
0–10 min
Get a bait in the water on the line you intend to fish. Do not search the whole venue in ten minutes.
10–30 min
A few maggots, a pinch of mash, or nothing — the first bait in the hole is often enough.
30–60 min
If nothing, change one thing — depth, bait or spot — not three. Read the troubleshooting on this page.
They melt it. Sometimes a pluck on bread. Do not wait for a second invitation.
Downstream and up, immediately on a proper take, then keep the rod up.
Steer them out of the bush you just pulled them from. Net them. They are not barbel but they still need wet hands.
Camping. A 0.10mm hooklength into roots. River in May. The fifth trot through a hole you already educated.
Spooked: you showed yourself, or the fifth trot through the same hole. Snagged: too light, or the wrong hole. No fish: they are in the next bush.
Beginner setup
A 6g Avon, bread flake, a bush you can reach after 16 June, 6lb line, a net.
More advanced
Change depth, bait or feed before you change peg.
No linked on-the-bank problems for this method yet.
Catches
Nobody has shared a catch using this technique yet. When someone does, it will show up here — we do not invent anglers or photos.