Floats for shy biting fish.
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It's not just small floats that have become scarce in tackle shops - most offer a wider range of pole floats and a few generic running line floats.
I'm another who likes to fish close in with rod and line - even though I was a bit of an early-adopter of pole stuff, starting with a Garbolino SLV in 1978. These days fishing "off your rod end" has got a bit further away, thanks to longer rods, and I carry a bunch of little floats, many home made, for fishing long rod and pin. As to the best shape, length etc, I think it all depends...... dead depth, on the drop, shallow, well over-depth with backshots and shot on the bottom, deep swims, shallow ones, calm days, choppy water...different designs all have their uses.
you can find some nice little floats if you search "whip wagglers" on ebay.
The glow-tip type ones do look cute. But some of the peacock floats in the pic have been in use since 1980's; I don't own any old glow-tips! The tips, if I dare mention the subject, seem to be as fragile as some delicate rod tips.
The two tiny peacock wagglers in the bottom right. I made some the same and these were the floats I was referring to earlier which I dotted down so they were just in the surface tension.
barbelboi
Well-known member
Go for it Alan, it's been working well for at least a century now..................
I think that some factors are being missed here:
Inertia, you have two floats and one is much bigger than the other. The big one is a broom handle and the small one is a Drennan glowtop, they are both set up to sink with just an additional no.6 shot but because of inertia and water resistance (friction) the smaller float will sink easier.
John Step made the valid point that if a flat topped float is carefully adjusted to just barely rest in the surface film then resistance is minimal.
Another factor is where the float is shotted and how much of the float is showing. Imagine a crucian picking up the bait and only moving a short distance, the shot must move before the float moves, the float tilts before it moves and submerges.
Now many anglers consider float legering a crude and ungainly method but it is actually very efficient. You use a small delicate float which is set up slightly over depth. It is carefully shotted low down in the water with the shot near the float. The leger is actually a single SSG shot which is on a very short link with a small bead (not a swivel or Drennan ring). The leger stop is a large size float stop which rests on the loop knot on the end of your reel line. A 6 inch hook length is attached loop to loop. A fish picks up your bait and because there is only minimal movement allowed the float goes under, minimal resistance from float and also leger. As a test put a leger weight on a link with a swivel and then a link with a bead, hold the reel line in both hands and make the leger weight slide backwards and forwards, you will find that the link with the bead slides much freer and with much less resistance.
Inertia, you have two floats and one is much bigger than the other. The big one is a broom handle and the small one is a Drennan glowtop, they are both set up to sink with just an additional no.6 shot but because of inertia and water resistance (friction) the smaller float will sink easier.
John Step made the valid point that if a flat topped float is carefully adjusted to just barely rest in the surface film then resistance is minimal.
Another factor is where the float is shotted and how much of the float is showing. Imagine a crucian picking up the bait and only moving a short distance, the shot must move before the float moves, the float tilts before it moves and submerges.
Now many anglers consider float legering a crude and ungainly method but it is actually very efficient. You use a small delicate float which is set up slightly over depth. It is carefully shotted low down in the water with the shot near the float. The leger is actually a single SSG shot which is on a very short link with a small bead (not a swivel or Drennan ring). The leger stop is a large size float stop which rests on the loop knot on the end of your reel line. A 6 inch hook length is attached loop to loop. A fish picks up your bait and because there is only minimal movement allowed the float goes under, minimal resistance from float and also leger. As a test put a leger weight on a link with a swivel and then a link with a bead, hold the reel line in both hands and make the leger weight slide backwards and forwards, you will find that the link with the bead slides much freer and with much less resistance.
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I just buy peacock quills ,cut to lenght and insert a length of very fine flight feather quill. You can use anything for the insert goose quill is my go to method at the moment. You can make them any shotting size you like.And with a fine light quill insert they are super sensitive, cheap to make as well.
Cocktail stick insert is another option. I paint the antenna with black and white stripes for the whole lenght and an orange tip. shows lift bites very nicely for my vision.
Cocktail stick insert is another option. I paint the antenna with black and white stripes for the whole lenght and an orange tip. shows lift bites very nicely for my vision.
Mark Wintle
Well-known member
Crucians often stand on their head to feed and the best advice I ever received was to fish about 3" over depth so that the crucian did not keep pushing the bait away with its body. I usually use pole floats to fish for crucians, dotted down and have no trouble seeing or hitting the bites but it's easy to take a 5" piece of slim peacock quill and add a hollow pole float tip (1mm?), both materials easy to source on eBay, to make a simple canal float that's easy to see and fish it dotted down.
I once had the opportunity to watch Prussian Carp feeding in the margins of a river, they are close relations to Crucians. Is was night time but the section in question was lit by street lamps and right in the edge in about 2 foot of water were a couple of them feeding there.
They were delicate indeed. Its hard to explain but its almost like they «curled » round very slowly as they fed almost twisting in slow motion. They didnt really swim along as such from item to item, they sort of curled on one spot. I could see exactly why if they had taken a bait the float would hardly move because the fish was not taking the bait an swimming off if I can put it like that. I am sure Crucians would feed in the same way.
It was very interesting to see. I stood there for ages watching them.
...PS Mark just posted the photo above just before I made my post...the Prussians fed like this too ..head down on one spot, curling round as they fed...
They were delicate indeed. Its hard to explain but its almost like they «curled » round very slowly as they fed almost twisting in slow motion. They didnt really swim along as such from item to item, they sort of curled on one spot. I could see exactly why if they had taken a bait the float would hardly move because the fish was not taking the bait an swimming off if I can put it like that. I am sure Crucians would feed in the same way.
It was very interesting to see. I stood there for ages watching them.
...PS Mark just posted the photo above just before I made my post...the Prussians fed like this too ..head down on one spot, curling round as they fed...
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mikench
Well-known member
Could anyone supply a simple diagram of this set up and what kind of bead is used?
Another Dave
Well-known member
One advantage i can immediately see with Peter's float-ledgering setup is that no matter which way the fish moves, the float is always going to go under.
For crucians - if I can find anywhere to fish for them these days - I tend to go for a "dotted" fine-tip float at dead depth or just over. But your float leger point is a good one.
An unlikely-looking rig that has often worked better than anything else for "big" (12 oz + where I fish) roach involves a short piece of thin peacock, double rubber, fished flat on the surface, with a couple of shot, maybe 2 no4 or2BB, on a link tied on (not even sliding) above a 12" hooklength. Why it works so well, I don't know, but fish that will give you cautious bites you're prone to miss on conventional rigs will bury the float ...... perhaps because it give such a still, stable presentation. It was particularly useful when there was tow on the water or pull on the canal, and can be used with a pole, too.
I picked up the idea from a book by Kevin Ashurst where he described a flat-float rig he used on occasions, with shot either off or on the bottom. He said he didn't know why it worked - just that it did!
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That kind of fits in with what I said earlier in this thread. Freelining a couple of rod lengths out with nothing more than a couple of bb anywhere between 12 and 36 inches from the hook and just using a bit of slack in the line as an indicator, sometimes they’ll take that but not from under a float.
I'd like to know, too. Latest mention I found online was this profile
Kevin Ashurst: the master | Angling histories | Fishing | Canal & River Trust
Ray Roberts
Well-known member
I fish differently to the ways described here. I think it was Jerry who told me about the Glow tip antennas a few years ago at Marsh farm. I like them but they seem a bit fragile. I keep intending to make some with carbon fibre antennas but haven’t got around to it yet. I put a larger than usual dropper very near the hook. I fish dead depth and put the shot within 25-30mm from the hook. It doesn’t look right but the fish don’t care and bites are far more positive than with a conventional set up.
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I don't know if anyone has found the same problem with carbon antenna as me but I find it can prevent the float from cocking efficiency overweighting the float and in effect making it tip heavy which is something you can get away with on bigger floats,on smaller pattern for me it does not work very well.
Hence my reason for a very light quill insert antenna.
Hence my reason for a very light quill insert antenna.
wetthrough
Well-known member
A 1mm carbon stem weighs fractionally less, about 7.5% than a painted 1.6mm hollow bristle. Maybe it 'sticks' to the water more so than a painted bristle?
Thinking about it a bit more it won't have as much buoyancy as a 1.6mm bristle having less volume which may be the problem rather than the in air weight.
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Alan Tyler
Well-known member
I've enlarged the (to me) important bit - too many people used to just put a float on, with no weight other than the ledger, then wonder why they weren't catching, and abandon the method. Ya gotta do the physics!
wetthrough
Well-known member
I'm going to give this a try at some point but I've been wondering about "shots near the float". Why near the float? Doesn't it make casting a bit clumsy?