It started with a float.

[binka]

My fascination with floats began as a young kid, probably seven or eight years old.

After unearthing my dad’s fusty and abandoned fishing tackle in his allotment shed it was the brightly coloured floats which caught my eye the most and the bewilderment of all the different sorts and colours, many of which I now know to have been Harcorks.

These days I will persevere with the float when I know I should be doing something else purely because I get so much more enjoyment out of it and I would endorse doing the same be it tip fishing, sitting behind alarms etc. but it's the float that captures my imagination far more than anything else.

It’s much a case of too many floats and not enough storage and I doubt I’m even near to being one of the worst offenders…







I know, I know…



That’s before I even get started on pike, zander, night and other specialist floats mg:

I would love to replace every float I have with a homemade version but I fear I would have to live to 160 before I finish the job

The really strange thing over the last year or so is that my eyes have changed and they are picking out yellow much better than red so I’m currently considering having an afternoon or two painting a few over.

 

[tigger]

That's a lovely float ....you make that n'all Steve!

 

[S-Kippy]

I do love a float but I'm just as happy when a tip pulls round or a bobbin creeps up into the butt ring. I couldn't honestly say i prefer one over the other though there is something that just feels right about a float rig. I've had loads of favourites over the years...Canal greys, Pete Warren sticks, I rather like those Middy Barbel Trotters but for years i wouldn't entertain anything other than a yellow topped crow quill. I was very young, we fished canals mostly and the wares of Messrs Makin and Drennan were beyond us.

But a box of floats is just such a lovely thing to own. It doesn't matter that many of them will never be used. I feel the same about my fly boxes.... they look great even though most of their occupants will never get wet.

And a float box must always be full. Never half full or nearly full..... full !

 

[peterjg]

It started with a float - one of those red and white celluloid floats, trotting hemp on the Thames with my dad at either Boveney, Penton Hook or Dorney Reach. I still have two of his floats but would not dare to use them in case I lost them, he died in 1962.

 

[thames mudlarker]

It started with a float - one of those red and white celluloid floats, trotting hemp on the Thames with my dad at either Boveney, Penton Hook or Dorney Reach. I still have two of his floats but would not dare to use them in case I lost them, he died in 1962.

No doubt some very enjoyable memories there Pete :thumbs:

---------- Post added at 23:34 ---------- Previous post was at 23:18 ----------

Those where the second clutch off a pair of blue and golds last year....still got one of them left. Sick of plonkers phoning up wanting to clip 'em and have them as ornaments on a effin perch in the corner of the room, it can stay with me until someone with a brain cell gets in touch.
The parents are down on three eggs now.

Nice one Ian, sounds good

Do you keep yours in large strong outside avairies when breeding em and then bring the youngsters indoors to be hand reared or are they parent reared :thumbs:

 

[mikench]

A fantastic collection of floats Steve and very artistically displayed ,as usual, If I may say so. They make my overfull float tubes look, well, exactly that, overfull float tubes.

 

[binka]

I still use float tubes occasionally Mike, if I'm on a bit of a hike and need to lighten the load or when I'm wading and want to take a few changes in my bait apron.

Very practical imo, the only reason I strayed away from them was that I found the tips rubbed together, especially the ones I had painted black, and rubbed the colour onto one another.

I suppose the easy way would have been for me to put the black tips in separate tubes but oh no, I can find a long way around a short job just as good if not better than the next man mg:

 

[tigger]

Nice one Ian, sounds good

Do you keep yours in large strong outside avairies when breeding em and then bring the youngsters indoors to be hand reared or are they parent reared :thumbs:

Yeah Stuart, that's right, I keep the adults in outdoor flights attached to a shed with wire tunnels into all wire suspendeds. I have the boxes on the indoor suspendeds. Obviously the shed is all steel clad as they can chew through timber like beavers mg:.

Oop's forgot to say I pull the chicks at two to three weeks generally (sooner if I don't like the way things are looking) and hand rear 'em. I have left them until 8/9 weeks and they've been just as cuddly tame but the longer you leave 'em in the more chance of loosing 'em.

 

[thames mudlarker]

Yeah Stuart, that's right, I keep the adults in outdoor flights attached to a shed with wire tunnels into all wire suspendeds. I have the boxes on the indoor suspendeds. Obviously the shed is all steel clad as they can chew through timber like beavers mg:.

Sounds brilliant Ian,

Yea mate I know only to well about birds chewing through wooden framework,

When I was more into the breeding and exhibition side of the birds I used to have Scottish crossbills that were licensed being on Schedule 4 of the wildlife and countryside act 1981.

These birds would literally chew and bore their way through the side of an avairy if I weren't careful,

Being a custom bird room and avairy designer and builder for many of me bird world freinds a few years back I very soon and quickly decided to double line the avairy panels with 16 guage wire mesh

 

[barbelboi]

Another terrific thread Derek - can't really add much except I'm about 90% float and 10% running lead/feeder/free lining/rolling................

PS I thought I had quite a few DH floats - I now know better Binks...........

 

[Bob Hornegold]

50-50
I started with a float and then floating crust and then legering, I reckon it's still about the same !!

Bob

 

[john step]

Like most on here I treasure my float fishing. The only fly in the ointment is eye tiredness during long sessions for me.

I have my eyes checked regularly and have good varifocals but at some time during the day I just have to put the float rod down and chuck out a lead on a buzzer while I eat my sarnies and give the eyes a rest.

Don't tell me to fish shorter sessions, life's too short.

 

[Windy]

It’s much a case of too many floats and not enough storage and I doubt I’m even near to being one of the worst offenders…

The real irony in your extensive collection is that every time I have met you on the bank you have been using the same float, over and over and over again !

[Edit]Hang on, brain fade here, 'tis Barbelboi I is a thinking of who is the mono-floatist, not you.... Oops, sorry [/Edit]

 

[dorsetandchub]

Like most on here I treasure my float fishing. The only fly in the ointment is eye tiredness during long sessions for me.

I have my eyes checked regularly and have good varifocals but at some time during the day I just have to put the float rod down and chuck out a lead on a buzzer while I eat my sarnies and give the eyes a rest.

Don't tell me to fish shorter sessions, life's too short.

John,

I have a similar situation but rather than switching to the lead I'll strip the pole down to the top four or, simply, fish the waggler closer in and maybe explore the margins.

It gives my eyes a rest, frees me up to snag a sarnie and/or coffee and, often the biggest bonus, attaches me to a lurking, lumping munter that was right under my feet all the time......

It happens too often to be pure coincidence....

 

[barbelboi]

[Edit]Hang on, brain fade here, 'tis Barbelboi I is a thinking of who is the mono-floatist, not you.... Oops, sorry [/Edit]

Nope, I lost that one a couple of years ago Evan, I've got another now - see what you've been missing at the LIF these last two visits...............

 

[Windy]

Nope, I lost that one a couple of years ago Evan, I've got another now - see what you've been missing at the LIF these last two visits...............

Let me guess. You've replaced the lost one with another identical one

 

[dorsetandchub]

One was that recovered from the Itchen and then sold on ebay?

 

[thames mudlarker]

Like most on here I treasure my float fishing. The only fly in the ointment is eye tiredness during long sessions for me.

I have my eyes checked regularly and have good varifocals but at some time during the day I just have to put the float rod down and chuck out a lead on a buzzer while I eat my sarnies and give the eyes a rest.

Don't tell me to fish shorter sessions, life's too short.

Nothing wrong with doing that John, sounds the most sensible solution :thumbs:

 

[barbelboi]

Let me guess. You've replaced the lost one with another identical one

Shhh..............................

 

[bracket]

I have always been a float angler. Back in the late 1940's and early 1950's, it was goose quill and porcupine quill floats, plus the maggot for roach and dace on the Trent. Moving on to the 1960's, when I began regular match fishing, it was the stick float and caster, up until the the time the late Johnny Rolfe came along and won, when ever he fished the Notts Fed matches, using the Waggler. So that was another float method to learn, although to be fair it was more the fact that Johnny was fishing a line passed the normal stick float line, that was the nub of it. So with the stick float and the waggler mastered I felt competent when entering a match. That was until I started to get banjoed on both sides by anglers, who never even owned a float, using the feeder. Back to the drawing board and another method to learn and to be honest I did win a lot of coin fishing the "pig". Back to feeling confident again, then along comes Dave Thomas, from Leeds, filling the Trent in with bronze maggot and leaving everyone in his wake. So its all a never ending learning curve, which is good. However come pleasure fishing time, my first love is, as always, got to be the float. Pete,