London based big fish ace Neill Stephen rightly won the Drennan Cup in 2011 with a string of big fish capped by a British Record Perch last March.  Despite increased family pressures on his time, Neill has enjoyed another spectacular year, with double figure Tench, specimen eels and a thirty pound Pike – all just the preliminaries to positioning his landing net under possibly his most spectacular fish yet!

At the end of February Neill had sent both the internet and the angling press into meltdown with the capture of this 9lb 5oz British record equalling Chub from the River Lea.   He began a big chub campaign late in the season when the fish were at their biggest, and went down in the evening to pre-bait some swims, returning the following dawn to fish.  The chub aren’t used to being targeted during these hours and seem to lose a lot of their caution.  In fact while walking the river in the early morning Neill has heard them crashing out under the snags giving their locations away, while the banks are deserted.

On arrival the following morning Neill set up a simple rig;  free-lined cheese paste to a size 5 Drennan Super Specialist Barbel hook, using an old Drennan Super Specialist Duo rod fitted with a very light Glass quiver tip.  Neill likes to use 10kg Power Pro braid for chub fishing – it is very fine and offers little resistance to the current, allowing him to fish lighter, and of course there is less resistance for the fish to feel – a quite innovative tactic for Chub.  Also, and importantly, it allows him to fish near to snags with confidence.

First cast to the pre baited spot produced a bite after only a minute, which was missed, but it could have been a crayfish.   After a few more casts, letting the bait trundle down the river to explore every spot, paying out line as it went, Neill received a violent bite, and connected to strong fish, which turned out to be a lovely looking dark chub of 7lb 2oz!  What a start….

Neill was about to move, but thought to have one final cast, this time putting the bait much further across and downstream. The bait bounced around for a while, before coming to rest mid river.  A minute later he received a gentle knock, followed by a slow confident pull around. The fish hit the surface straight away and from the thrashing sound Neill was convinced he’d hooked a double figure barbel.  In fact all the ducks and coots spooked and flew off!   Neill didn’t give an inch of line, but as it had been hooked quite a way downstream, it managed to kite round and got beneath a snag on the near bank. There were a few hairy moments, but by sinking the rod tip as far as he could, it slowly came out.  It then went on a long run across the river just as he was reaching for the net.  At this stage he had caught a glimpse of it, and from the length, and the power of the fight, was still assuming it was a barbel.  It wasn’t until it came right to the net that Neill saw it was a chub, and could see immediately that it absolutely dwarfed the seven caught earlier, which had looked big enough!  Neill’s first thought was just “that is enormous!”

Neill rested it in the edge for a minute then got it on the scales. To his disbelief they sailed past 8lb and settled at 9lb 6oz in a plastic bag  (The exact final weight is still waiting to be confirmed following subsequent scales checks and deduction for the plastic bag).  Neill got two first class witnesses in the shape of Fishers Green Head Bailiff, Steve Evans, and the NAC Chairman, Mark Salt, as they were both local and could make it over quickly.

There are a lot of very good anglers on the River, and very few chub commented Neill, who afterwards could only reflect on the overwhelmingly good luck he’d had to land a bait on the nose of this one in an obliging mood!

On our part we’d like to thank Neill for sharing a brilliant account of a memorable capture, which is genuinely inspiring!   Fantastic angling.