ABOUT US
The C.S.G. began life in 1972 after the decline of the National Chub Specimen Group.
In those early days the Group consisted of only a handful of dedicated chub anglers based in and around the Melton Mowbray area fishing mainly the small rivers and streams of the East Midlands. With a joining fee of £1-00 and a yearly membership fee of just 60 pence the Group produced a bi-monthly newsletter which was the forerunner of today's C.S.G. magazine.
"Chevin" as the magazine is called today is the cornerstone on which the Group is built and is compiled entirely from articles, photographs, letters and news items written by and from Group members. Many issues of the magazine contain articles, letters etc unpublished anywhere else penned by the groups two late Chairmen, Dick Walker and Peter Stone, who as we all know, were both prolific writers and are still sadly missed in this world of ‘celebrity anglers'.
Many of the early offerings by some currently high profile angling journalists, broadcasters and presenters can be found within the pages of the magazine, (also in the Groups first published book ‘Chub') and it would not be unfair to say that the Group and magazine has been the springboard for many angling careers. Many marriages do not last as long as some Group memberships.
Today the Group draws its members from all areas of mainland Britain where chub rivers are to be found, and membership levels have remained fairly constant at about 60-65 for a number of years. This level of membership seems to be the optimum in order to keep the Group as members would wish, small enough to be friendly and intimate with all sharing a passion for chub fishing, but also large enough to enable the Group to publish a good quality magazine four times each year.
Although the C.S.G. is basically a specimen group, to many of the membership it much more than just a group of anglers who target big chub, with many long distance and long lasting friendships having been built over the years.
Nowhere is the friendship between members more apparent than at the couple of get-together weekends organized by the Group each year where members meet old friends and have drink or two, or more.
New members who attend their first get-together are always surprised at the friendliness shown at these weekends and usually turn out to be the longer lasting members themselves. Many of the members who joined in the 70's are still active within the Group with several members having a history with the C.S.G. spanning well over a quarter of a century.
On one of these weekends (normally Feb /March) the A.G.M. is also held. This is probably one of the best attended A.G.M.'s of any of the single species/specimen groups, one of the shortest and without controversy. In recent years the meeting has been held on the Sunday of the weekend so as not to interfere with fishing and socialising time.
Within the Group there is definitely none of the secrecy associated with some specimen groups, with information being freely shared between members and, unlike most single species groups the Chub Study Group is still the ONLY and original group of anglers to target the species, which makes us unique in UK specimen angling. However, socialising is only part of what makes the Group what it is, the willingness to report fish caught and share the results with other members is paramount and without active member participation the Group could not function.
We are definitely not a group of ‘secret squirrels' However, we do ask that all information obtained from other Group members and or the magazines etc, is kept within the Group.