The World Chub Fishing Tournament

Chubs don't get much respect.  They are not exactly game fish.  In fact they are basically minnows.  But they are particularly feisty minnows and you can catch them on on hook and line.  And so on a sunny July Saturday that was the order of the day.  Catch chubs.

As to calling it the "World Championship", well there do seem to be other organized events that included Chubs but none that did so exclusively.  So we will call ourselves the World Championship until somebody comes along says otherwise.

It was a fine day for fishing.  You might notice that in the below photo I am standing on the shoulder of an asphalt road instead of alongside a picturesqe and pristine brook.  The best place for tournament quality Chubs proved to be the culverts along rural roads.

If you are thinking that this seems a bit "redneck" you are quite correct.  Some of our half dozen tournament teams played this up a little more than others.  Team Ten Inch played it up a lot more....

But they are after all a team made up of Game Wardens so they were pretty sure nobody would come along and ask them what the hell they were doing.

Here we have the 2016 Chub Masters.  Was their success due to their combined and complimentary skill sets? ( A retired Fisheries Biologist and a car salesman ).  Or was it the custom Chub tournament fishing shirt?

The above photo was taken in Tournament Headquarters, which in keeping with the redneck theme was a garage.  On the floor a line up of Chubs awaits their turn on the scale.  A nice thing about this kind of event is you can toss your ten weigh in fish into a dust pan for convenient weighing.

When weigh in was complete our team turned out to be in second place.  We also had the second largest Chub in the event which is still, alas, way smaller than the state record.  Tactics for the 2017 event are already being pondered...

And what better way to ponder them than an evening of grilled food, lawn games and conversation in the back yard; kids, dogs and chickens dashing about frantically.  Beer of course was necessary.  Those wishing to continue in redneck, road fishin' mode were welcome to various bargain brand suds.  I personally made the decision to go a more tasteful route - in several respects - and commemorated a day of hunting pugnacious minnows with a few glasses of this:

The harvested Chubs were donated to the local raptor center.  Eagles and ospreys consider them most tasty snacks.