I revived my interest in trotting with a stickfloat at the recent river Idle fish-in and since then I've had a short session on my local river Dane.

It was a very short, less than 3 hour afternoon session, but I did manage to catch about 18lb of roach to about 12oz and some lovely dace to about 10oz.

Normally I prefer the strung out 'shirt button' shotting pattern which gives a gradual fall through the water and allows you to hold back to the point where you can let the bait ride up over snags and shallower areas on the trot down.

However, being in a hurry and wanting to make the most of the session before it went dark, I wasn't too fussy about the shotting and bulked a few bigger shot at about a third of the depth (in a five foot deep swim) with just a couple of smaller dropper shot below that.

Now, I made a decent catch, but, would I have made a better catch if I'd strung out the shot?

I had a bite every trot through the swim, but I didn't hit them all, and my caster was shelled quite often.

Obviously hook size and a few other factors come into this. For info I used a 1.5lb hooklength and a 16's with double caster, changing to an 18's to 1.5lb bottom and a single caster at one stage. The single caster set-up did slightly better, but not significantly better. I didn't have time to mess about any more or would have tried a 20's.


I fed just half a pint of casters mixed with half a pint of hempseed.

Anyway, thoughts please, particularly about shotting patterns with stickfloats, but please comment on anything that you think could be relevant.

I often found on the thames that the only way to get the bigger roach, was to use a bulk about 18 inches from the hook and a couple of small droppers below that. other wise you just got bits.

you can still keep in touch with a bulk shot if you cast it correctly.
18lb in 3hours on the stick would tend to suggest you must be doing something right.

Maybe, but they tended to be a decent size rather than being a lot of fish. I missed quite a lot of bites. I'm not saying it was all to do with the shotting pattern. I don't know, which is why I'm seeking other views. Thanks for yours, they confirm part of my own thoughts on this.

I don't think we will ever arrive at the best shotting pattern. However it's a lot of fun trying to get there.

On the lower tidal Idle where it is deep, and on the Trent too, I tend to start my shotting about halfway beween float and hook. Most of the shot needed to cock the float are bulked there. And then go down shirt button style to the hook using "Stotz" shot which are a darned sight easier to get on the fine line than normal shot.

I hope to get John Ledger to comment on this thread, he is a darned good stick float angler.

That's a nice catch you made there Graham, especially the dace.

when fishing the stick in club matches i always started off shirt button style.then if the smaller fish,bleak etc... kept bothering me then i always had the option of bunching the shot together so i could get the bait down quickly and hopefully connect with the bigger stamp of fish.
reading grahams thread has made me realise its been a good few months since i last fished a stick on a river.....perhaps its time to have a go this sunday on the nene.

How would you shot a stickfloat on a shallow river about 3' deep?

Now I'm no expert in this area that is for sure but I think I read somewhere that in shallower rivers some anglers prefer a stumpier float like a chubber or something.

I'm not very good at float fishing, be kind.

In very shallow water the best type of float to use is a small loafer or something about 3 inches long like a grayling float. A wire stemmed stick is also OK with a portion of the wire cut off.

Bunch the shot about a foot from the hook and add a small shot about 6 inches from the hook.

Shallow water also tends to be fast water.

Old Tag Barnes used to use an oak apple if the fish were spooky.

An oak apple?

An acorn?

Interesting question Graham.

Given the same time frame I'd probably approach it as a 'match' and use the same tactics.
For me this would be to set up 2 identical rods, one with shirt button shotting and the other with a bulk about two thirds down and just 2 or 3 dropper shot.

Constant feeding should bring the fish up in the water so that would be the time to switch rods/rigs, but typically after a while the fish will drop back down (usually due to taking fish through the shoal) so then I'd switch back again to the deeper rig.

Every now and then I'll let the trot go further downstream and often the bigger (older and 'wiser') fish will be hanging off the feed, out of the commotion, and picking up the odd bits of loose feed and lower in the water too.

But then, who am I to teach my elders and betters how to 'suck eggs' :-)

Sadly, I can't fish this method for a while having crushed one of my beloved Tri-cast Finesse rods in the car door last weekend.

DON'T ASK!!!!!!!!


Baz, I'd opt for a Trent Trotter for a swim like you describe.
See Billy Lane's Float Fishing (penultimate chapter if I remember right) or MW's articles on FM :-)

Good pointers Peter and everyone else. Thanks.

an oak apple is one of them round galls you get on the branches and leaves of oak trees.

An oak apple is found on oak trees. It's very light and appears to be bark, a bit like cork.

The cork tree is a variey of oak I believe.

One of Mark Wintles articles HERE on fishing on shallow rivers. A really usefull article for this thread.
Thanks Peter.

Produced by the gall wasp, oak apples were also used by Ray Webb if I remember for pilot floats for pike fishing in the days when they were all the range.

He also made dumbell floats from them similar to the float used by Dennis Pye.

Dick Walker was born on Oak Apple Day - May 29th 1918 would you believe.

How's that for a bit of trivia.

you are right Ron cork is a variety of oak.

And I think balsa is also classed as a hardwood just the same as oak.

From one of my trotting articles:

"It is necessary at this point to understand the importance of the final (drop) shot. Decades ago debates raged for weeks on whether the drop shot had any effect, with Dick Walker taking on all comers, claiming that a bulk shotting pattern was the only one needed. My experience shows otherwise and I contend that if a fish moves this shot there should be an effect on the float. The nearer it is to the hook and the bigger it is the greater the effect. The nearer and bigger it is, however, the more likely the fish will feel it and drop the bait. It also has a significant effect on bait presentation. The positioning and size of the shot in this position is a compromise between sensitivity, presentation and not alerting the fish. It is rare to position it more than 18 inches from the hook, or closer than six inches. Sometimes an extra tiny shot near the hook can help bait presentation. Experiment! Try different sizes of shot when fishing, move the shot around, and notice the effect."

It's all about whether you're getting bites you can see but can't hit or bites that you don't see but you know you're getting because the bait is damaged. One way I've tried to overcome this is to fish pole floats on rod and reel with the bulk and droppers pattern; it certainly works and will show bites that conventional sticks don't even register - the next move is whether pole fishing proper can do the job even better with a lighter float?

Stick floats vary too between dome and pointed tops, Ivan Marks always favoured the pointed tops, and he was far from alone in that, reckoning that they showed bites better.

I followed a shotting pattern by ??Mark Bird?? in IYCF a good number of years ago. The placing of the dropper shot was critical.
But the difference in first getting the bites and then connecting with them was amazing.

I think when it came to float fishing, old Dick was wrong in many circumstances.

Pete Stone told me of the days when he and Dick used to argue hammer and tongue about the merits or otherwise of waggler floats, stick floats and shotting patterns.

Old Pete couldn't understand why Dick was so closed minded on this issue yet so open minded on all other aspects of angling.

I don't think Dick ever possessed a stick float or a modern waggler float in his life. All his floats were made from bird quills.

As regards Pole floats, I must rig one when I next fish the Idle