I have access to the Medway in Kent.

Can someone who has regulary caught chub and dace give me some detailed advice on catching them on the fly?

Tactics etc.

Thanks,
W.

I am no way a regular Chub/Dace fly fisher but I had a beautiful 2.5 to 3lb Chub on the Nadder at Wilton last evening. Size 12 Grey Wulff did the trick.

Dace are easily caught on dries, twitched slowly to cause a wake. On average I catch about 10.

Bushy dries work well for chub, so as Greendrake says wulffs also elk hair sedge's, humpies and hedgehogs will all work. Chub like nymphs aswell so your normal pheasant tails and hares ears should do the job.

Beat dace I ever had were taken on the upper Severn on a tiny white moth dry. Nearly a pound apiece, wish I had some photos..............birdsnest

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Fear not if I steal from your side, as of yore, from paradise streams to fish Teifi once more.
BN based in Wolverhampton

Had loads of Dace on a dry all small but 2 best patterns were a detached daddy and a elk hair sedge. Concentration is vital and strike like a ninja.
This is not a game for a hang over

Never a truer word spoken.
Unfortunately my Ninja, Jedi, and SAS skills have deserted me for the moment. Quick little bas***** those Dace are.
Strike.... too late
strike.....too late
and so it goes on.

I have had a lot of luck with chub however when fish aren't rising on gold head GRHE's.
Good luck
Dom

The first time I went fishing in a river I came accross them and only had an 8#, after about 50 missed takes and a huge build up of frustration I finally hooked one but it turned from a dace to a flying fish in 0 - 60 with my mad man striking!

Wozzer,

I can't say much about the dace, except small flies, including klinkhamers, work well. Use standard dry fly techniques.

As for chub, dry flies work if the fish are rising - up to a point you can treat them like trout. However, chub will take flies up to the size of a small plane, in fact sometimes they prefer that, so large bushy flies will work! The key to chub fishing is to avoid showing yourself to the fish and doing anything else to spook them. If you're presenting a dry fly, a floating tippet will often put the chub off, which is not especially surprising. However, that they'll take a seven inch mass of tinsel on the end of a fat wire trace might be!? So, if the dry fly doesn't work try something a little more striking!! Something like a seven inch sparkler

Good Luck

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Fly Fishers' Republic

I had a good day last Friday, fishing for chub in the back waters around Oxford. I found a large group of fish in the tail of a pool. Took some good fish on large bushy mayflies. I found I was able to catch at most two fish out of the shoal, then they would slowly vanish into the deeper water. I would then walk down stream, pick off a few of the smaller fish from under the trees, then return to the pool. After a ten or fifteen minute rest the shoal would be back. This happened 3 or 4 times.

As for flies, I did try nymphs, fishing the deeper water. I had no luck with them, unless I could see the take. I am no expert, but I am sure the fish were taking the fly, as I could see them chasing the fly in the shallow clearer water. I put it down to fact the takes must have been either, to quick (in and out) or that the take was so gentle, I could not see it.

I do find when fishing for coarse fish, it is better to fish across or down stream to them. I no this is not the done way but it works.

Jason