Zoomer Float - Use and Shotting.

On another thread there was talk of angling 'greats', this got me thinking about Ivan Marks.

Many years ago I can remember buying some Zoomer floats; they were fished top and bottom and were only really used in a particular set of circumstances.
Can anyone remember what these circumstances were and indeed what form the shotting pattern took?

I think they were used for fishing the far bank of fenland rivers but I can't remember anything of the shotting patterns.

Ivan's first book 'Ivan Marks on Match Fishing' has all the gen. It was used on the Welland for fishing right across but the commercial versions of the float were scaled down compared to the real thing which I once saw. The wind had to be not too strong, slightly upstream and off the angler's back with a slight pull on the river so that the float could be cast the required distance and the float inched through the swim, the advantage being a moving bait as opposed to a still bait via swingtipping.

The shotting is one SSG directly under the float, a AAA and A SSG bunched together just below halfway and a no. 1 as drop shot, about an inch of the antenna shows.

Strange that you bring these floats up now. Ive just resurected a couple from the depths of my old angling store to do a paint job on them for use in the future . I used them quite a lot in the late sixties/early seventies on the fenland match scene. They were, as stated developed or I think I,m right in saying "customised" from the old Billy Lane style sliding float for long range fishing on venues such as the wider reaches of the river Welland just above Spalding.-- Cradge bank, Red barn corner, 400s, four mile bar, Crowland bridge and onwards up to the famous 800 pegs all turned up great catches of fish- both bream and roach on the day to the countries best match anglers when a standard (for the time) swing tipped static bait wasnt working.
Shotting was generally placed dirictly beneath the float to give it the concentration of wieght to make it fly (zoom) the great distances to the far bank shelf, the rest of the shotting could be either a tiny bulked presentation with a couple of droppers or-- if the fish were up in the water- in the warmer months (mostly roach but on occasions even the bream) a lightly shotted shirt button job. Some anglers preferred to place the req'd wieght inside the floats lower body to make it self cocking, this way there was less chance of shot damage to the line-- it was how I preferred.
Plenty of floats today that do a similar job but names and "Who dun it first" change like traffic lights. Incidentally the Billy Lane sliding float (I have one of his originals in my float box) was another such adaptation from the old Antennea design, Billy simply made it into a slider by whipping a "micro" bottom eye in order to slow down the baits descent, something that he used with great skill-- I can see him now-- once giving me a lesson in float angling and again sat in the BBCs studio,s sat on his wicker basket as a contender for the Sports personality of the year! . How things/times change.
Hope this helps.

Gents

Many thanks for your replies - it was the slight upstream wind bit that I could remember.

Out of interest, what distances were being fished?

Off the top of my head around forty to forty five yards to the far side drop off.

Thanks for the reply.

*Thinks* 40 - 50 yds accurate casting and feeding with a float rod on a pegged match, takes some skill.

It was like many forms of float angling in those days BR, taken to the ultimate by the best around . It,s sad in a way how float fishing generally on rivers seems to have declined by the majority of anglers using them as -- in my opinion-- its one of the nicest ways to fish them.

flightliner said:

It was like many forms of float angling in those days BR, taken to the ultimate by the best around . It,s sad in a way how float fishing generally on rivers seems to have declined by the majority of anglers using them as -- in my opinion-- its one of the nicest ways to fish them.

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I totally agree.

Billy Lane's Encyclopaedia of Float Fishing has a chapter on the zoomer and how to use it. I was having a flick through a copy today. Might be of interest.

The man once had a late start on the Witham in the days when it was bream or bust on the swingtip, he took the field apart with the float and small roach and won, thats class.

Just had a look at Billy Lane's description of using a Zoomer and I'd say it's confusing at best and misleading at worst. I get the impression that Billy didn't like/fish the Zoomer, certainly not the way that Ivan did. He (Billy) mentions using it as a slider?, and bottom end only? neither of which were ever recommended by Ivan - all very strange. There's a bit of a generational thing here in that Billy's peak was more the mid 50s to mid 60s, whereas Ivan came to the fore in the late 60s to mid 70s, and in that time methods/waters changed.

Absolutly spot on Mark.Tho I have,nt read Billys book I know on the day when I saw him fish and win that match (1965/6-- I went to the match on my first motorbike that reminds me of the year) he was using one of his sliders with the "micro" eye that I mentioned in my earlier post.
Some few years later I was drawn near Ivan on the wide Welland above Spalding (late five hundred pegs, he was with the french champion Jaques Tesse and was using the float and I/we were all using swing tips with sausage rusk on the hook as bait and were having a good day with the bream--- I think if you can find an old copy of the angling times you will find a report of what happened but it was a somewhat differant account of how it was viewed by us, long long time ago now tho.
On that particular day he (Ivan) was using the Zoomer that had been developed more recantly.
Just a thought on your last comment Mark-- Billy was a great float man and roach were one of his big loves, it was about 1966 if I remember rightly that the roach disiease columnaris kicked in and wiped out many rivers roach populations making them a desert for the roach angler, maybe this was one of the reasons why men like Billy and others that made it with the roach had a harder time when these venues became bream or bust waters.
Enter the likes of Freddie Foster -------- and many many others.

Not having access to Ivan's book is there any mention of how the Zoomer was fished; with the line off the top of the float one presumes that the rod was held high?

It's possible to slow a bolo float down by using the wind as the float progresses down the swim, by the playing with the angle of between rod top and float and how much bow there is in the line.

Is this what happened?

The rod would be low with the line floating on top, Ivan mentioning mending the line as needed, this being the reason for a favourable wind. At a range of 40 yards there is no other option. The current is very very gentle, a mere fraction of that you'd get on rivers like the Trent, perhaps 3" per second compared to a yard a second. The drag of the line would be sufficient to retard the float enough.

It's also worth pointing out that at the time (early 70s) there were perhaps 20 times as many match anglers as there are today yet the number of anglers capable of fishing the Zoomer to the degree described by Ivan was very small, possibly less than 20, maybe much less ie the better anglers in the Leicester AS squad. Think about it; cast a huge top-and-bottom float 40 yards without tangling, using an ABU Mk 6 or Persuader, control it perfectly with Bayer 1.7 line, and feed accurately by hand. I once watched Ivan, along with 100 others, floatfish at this range (40 yards) on the Bristol Avon in the National, feeding by hand to within a foot; it made me realise just how good Ivan was at his peak.

Mark Wintle said:

Think about it; cast a huge top-and-bottom float 40 yards without tangling, using an ABU Mk 6 or Persuader, control it perfectly with Bayer 1.7 line, and feed accurately by hand. I once watched Ivan, along with 100 others, floatfish at this range (40 yards) on the Bristol Avon in the National, feeding by hand to within a foot; it made me realise just how good Ivan was at his peak.

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I have been thinking about the skills required to do this having never witnessed it.

In Ivans book does it cover mixing groundbait and feeding strategies, or is this covered elsewhere?

I know that I'm 35 years out of date with these questions but I like float fishing - probably to my own detriment.

I can just about remember that era. As kids we made zoomers out of balsa and peacock quills, weighted with brass piano wire. You could buy rods of balsa, cane stems and all sorts of quills at most tackle shops along with ready made eyes and the threads, glues and paints to finish off with.

I think one of the biggest advantages of the zoomer was that the bait dropped more slowly into the feeding zone as opposed to when ledgering. And bites were generally bolder because of the less resistance of these rigs.

Its been a trip down memory lane - Thanks.

Flightliner, I recall your article in Angling Star a while back - you mentioned about Billy being late for that match on the Witham when he drew next to you, and him mentioning that the bream would stop feeding after the heavy rain, if I remember.

Ivan, Benny and Fred - I have their books, and what they wrote is still relevant. I was too young to have known any - I was born in 1965 but did not start fishing until the late seventies. What Ivan/John Goodwin wrote improved my own fishing immensely in the absence of any other guidance.

ravey, you,re right, what they did by the waterside and left written is a legacy that many can and will benefit from in the future, they were the giants of angling back then. Regarding "that match", for about one glorious hour I had a great lead over possibly one of the best, sadly, like my aspirations for a similar career in match angling it all came apart some five years later.
Great days tho.

Interesting thread this. It prompted me to dig out my well thumbed copy of Ivan Marks on Match Fishing and the following quotes might be of interest:

The zoomer I will deal with in chapter 14 on the Welland, not just because that's the best river to fish it, but because it can be a serious mistake to fish it on most others....

... it can be up to a 40 yard cast across to the far bank. But somewhere beneath that expanse lies the the course of the old river. Lots of people think that it's always in the same position over towards the far bank, but this is not so.

Ivan goes on to give the position of the channel for all 850 pegs and it ranged from the middle to the far bank, so he was fishing ranges between 20 and 45 yards. I used to fish the wide Welland a lot in the late 70s and early 80s and the book was an invaluable source of info. I tended to fish for the tench rather than the bream and these were to be found just on the edge of the channel where the water shallowed slightly.