Mike. For 95% of my river fishing I use a stick float, because that is what I like to do. There have been numerous threads on this subject and the only real conclusion was that everyone has their own take on it. This is mine. I work on a rule of thumb, one No 4 shot per foot of water, in a medium paced current. So for a 4 foot swim, a shot load of 4 to 5 No 4s would be a good starting point. Using PJ's shotting chart, that would be around a one gram float. That said I would actually use only No 6 and No 8 shot on the line. I prefer to have several shot on the line to allow for permutation. If you shot up with a a couple of heavy bulk shot and a couple of droppers, that is a simple rig which will easily work, but gives you very little option to do anything else. A float set up with say, 6 No 6 and 4 No 8 will give you a variety of possibilities. That's just my opinion. I work on the premise that to begin with most fish will be in the bottom third of the depth. When using a 6 No 4, 4 No 8 float I would put a No 8 dropper shot 8 inch from the hook, with another 6 inch above that, and 6 inch above that I would start a bulk shot with 1 No 8 (This No 8 gives you the option to move it down and have 3 droppers x 4 inch apart, rather than 2 droppers x 6 inch apart, if needs be) the remaining 6 No 6s I string shot, half a inch apart from the third No 8 shot. This is a personal preference, you can bulk them together if you wish. Finally, the last No 8 shot goes tight under the float stem, as a depth marker. Over riding all this is the need to put your float where the fish are, as S-Kippy says, don't fish too light. I attach my floats to the line with 3 rubbers, which allows me to quickly change the float. If I needed to cast further out, on a steady flow, I would change to a heavier float, leave the down the line shots as they are and add the extra lead needed to cock the float, directly under it (with the No 8 depth marker). Hope you can make sense of this. Pete.
