Chub Fish: Which Fish Are Chubs, ID and Eating

Chub is a common name shared by fish in several unrelated groups, so the answer depends on where you are (Wikipedia):

• European chub (Squalius cephalus): in the UK, chub on its own means this fish, a stocky river fish of the carp and minnow family
• North American chubs: small stream and lake fish of the same family, including the creek chub (Semotilus), lake chub (Couesius), hornyhead chub (Nocomis), least chub and flame chub
• Sea chubs: the family Kyphosidae, also called rudderfish, which live close to shore in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans
• Chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus): a small mackerel of 20 to 36 cm, one of the world's big commercial catches
• Cisco or lake herring (Coregonus artedi): also listed under chub by Wikipedia

If you caught a chub in a North American creek, it is almost certainly one of the minnow-family chubs. A side-on photo will narrow it to the species.

Wikipedia describes a stocky fish with a large, rounded head. The scales are greenish-brown and edged in black across the back, turning golden on the flanks; the dorsal fin is greyish-green and the other fins orange-red.

Most chub are around 30 cm, though they can reach 64 to 82 cm. The UK record is 9 lb 5 oz (4.2 kg), caught on 16 March 2012, and the European record is 5.72 kg (Wikipedia). They can live up to 22 years and are most common in small rivers and large streams with riffles and pools. Young fish eat small aquatic and land animals; large adults eat freshwater shrimp and small fish, and also berries such as blackberries and elderberries.

Creek chubs grow to about 6 to 10 inches (15 to 25 cm) and live in small streams and creeks across the United States and Canada, often hiding under small rocks (Wikipedia). The quickest mark is a small black spot on the dorsal fin. The related fallfish is in the same genus; both readily take natural and artificial baits and fight well on ultralight tackle.

Mostly not, with a few exceptions. The angling site Best of Angling describes UK chub as largely inedible: full of forked bones, tasteless and soft. It reports that some North American chubs are eaten and that creek chubs are smoked, and that even Utah chub, usually thrown away, tasted like any other smoked freshwater fish when one angler smoked them.

The chub mackerel is the clear exception: it is a widely eaten food fish, with a catch that peaked at 3,412,602 tons in 1978 (Wikipedia). It is served raw and marinated in Sicily and salted or braised in Korea.

For any fish you catch yourself, check your local consumption advisory for that water.

Searches for chub also bring up things that are not fish. In food, a chub is a tube of flexible packaging with the ends sealed by metal clips, used for sausage, ground beef and ground turkey (Wikipedia); that is what a chub of meat means. Wikipedia also lists slang uses, including a British word for part of the cheek.

Research and drafting for this page were assisted by AI, and every figure was checked against the sources listed below on 25 September 2026. Where two sources disagree, both figures are given with their source.