Marker floats

May sound daft dut how do you use a marker float. derrrrrrr

No body going to tell me about marker floats then?????

Doug,
Put a two ounce lead up your line, followed by a bead. Next tie on a swivel,with one foot of line attatch one end to the swivel, and the other to a marker foat. Cast out, tighten up to the lead, then pull line off your reel in one foot lengths,counting how many foot lengths of line you pull off, until the float appears on the surface. This also tells you what depth you are at.

you use it to mark an area that you are casting to.

plus you use it for plumbing the depth, plus if you set up right you can find out the properties of the lake bed in any given area.

Thanks lads that grate.

The best main line to use for a marker rod is braid.you will feel much more with braid than with mono.

set up as baz suggests then once you have the depth where you first cast in turn the rod tip to the side and make a slow sweep backwards.

feel how the vibrations come through the line.
if the lead is on gravel you will get a sharp tapping at the tip as it rolls over the top and bumps into small stones..

if it is on mud or silt it will slide smoothly towards you.

if it feels heavy then goes light it probably means you have pulled it over the top of a rise such as a gravel bar.

if it just feels a sort of sullen dull heavy resistance you are dragging it through weed.

as you pull it back towards you periodically re test the depth by letting the line off as baz says.

in this way you can build up a map of the swim in front of you either on paper or in your head.

jason do you not suffer from drifting/towing when using braid?i use mono as you dont suffer from drift/towing but you dont feel the vibrations as much as braid

Once agen Jason thanks for all your help.

Doug

will you should be tight to it so i don't quite understand what you mean i tend to use a large pike float any way so it's very buoyant and some times i'm using 4 oz flat leads for long range work.
i suppose at very long range you could get some bowing of the line but mono would be worse than braid really it's diameter tends to be greater than that of braid.
and at any range you just cant feel enough with mono to know what the bottom is made up of.

no problem doug only too glad to help that's what i should have put for my first post really.