Floater fishing help

Hi All Big sky here.

At one of my local haunts not fished to often by anyone iv'e found the carp have a likeing to Bakers beef dog food " nice fat floaters" they will take them whole or cut up .Twodays ago they started a feeding frenzey like I never seen befor on the water.

So off i went 2 boxes in hand the waters very weedy so the only way to fish is on top , I sat on my hands and put a Q of a box out chopped to all sizes the fish went mad as exspected,I had been trying to find a TF GEAR bolt floater rig but it,s not in the catalog no more so i brought the FOX bolt bubble for 4 hours i watched the carp and rudd bump my controler mouth my bait but no joy .

I have long hair now but to many days/weeks of this and i don't know any help please the leader was 2 and a half foot size 10 Partridge F9 hook mucilin to make it all floatand on the noose instead of a hair.

please help is it them being cleaver or me being thick./forum/smilies/baring_teeth_smiley.gif/forum/smilies/i_dont_know_smiley.gif/forum/smilies/crying_smiley.gif

Chears all BS.

Making the leader float is the opposite of what you want to do, this makes the line very obvious sitting in the surface film of the water and this makes any species of fish wary of your bait. You can buy pots of line degreasing sinkant to sink your hooklength (around 2-3ft wants sinking), this stuff is intended for fly fishing but its massively helpful for all surface fishing and waggler fishing, I always have some on me these days!

I use as short a hair as possible when fishing the surface as fish dont tend to suck the bait in very much at all ive found so you need to be able to set the hook pretty much instantly, if your hook is obvious this can make fish wary as well as it will be silhouetted against the sky instead of lying on a lakebed.

A small stick secured to your line with stick float rubbers and a couple of shot makes a far better and cheaper controller than any you can buy, but having nothing on your line is better than anything if this is possible. I always freeline when surface fishing!

Your approach is spot on though, get a good smattering of bait out and then try and spot the biggest fish when they all start coming to the surface. The evening is always the best time for surface fishing and the weather is getting better and better for it at the mo, so stick at it and youll very soon catch loads on what is in my opinion the most enjoyable way of fishing out there.

Tight lines /forum/smilies/big_smile_smiley.gif

Sky,

Iwould say you need more like 6ft from float to hook, I would never use a 2 to 3 foot hook length floater fishing. Try adding a flavour, that can also give you an edge.

If not many people fish there you should be able to get 'em feeding quite close in. Then you can do away with the controller all together. This is the way I like to fish on the top. I don't use hair-rigs either. Just a hook on the end of the line and thats it. A while back I was using soft cat bicuits as bait and this allowed me to use a fairly light hook, which I think helped as a heavy hook would've been easily detected.

Have you tried th old fashioned way?

A peice of bread crust about the size of a matchbox freelined on about a size 6 hook. Carefully put the hook through the bread from the crust side, turn it through 180 degrees and pull it back into the bread. When you cast out just give the bait a quick weting to add a bit of weight. You will find the bait will present itself with the hook eye upwards and the line will not touch the surface for about 4 to 6 inches around the bait. Very rare for this not to be slurped down.

can you get them close as possible? i always freeline for floater fishing with 6-8lb line, if anything get them under the rod tip so that you can present a mixer with no line on the surface anyway.

oh....and do away with the hair, cat a small groove in the back of a mixer and superglue it to the shank of the hook.

Thank you all for your tips and help some v usefull things to do .

Ray i was starting to think along thoughs lines i thought 2 to 3 foot abit short so niceone m8e.

BarryC been trying the old fashioned way for weeks but although they not fished to reguler the big ones are very cannie and if the rudd can't do the job for them they will smash it off the hook with there tails thats why iv,e gone for a softish dogfood floater not a hard ones.

Clive the floaters that i'm useing are Bakers complete meaty meals which are great one whole one has a good casting weight but they are firm enough to be cut into halfs to eigths thats when they get a bit lightso i,ll try the stick on rubbers for the smaller ones and i will also try doing away with the hair and as they are soft try direct hooking.

one last thing i chopped half a bag saturday night and lightly salted them with sea salt and left them to sweat over night so when i poped over yesterday to do a prebait before i go tonight ,i usually stay and watch for an hour or so to see if i can learn anything more allways garenteed a show but as soon as the salted ones hit the water it just erupted never seen anything likeit before they were fighting the ducks and moorhens whitch never stood a chance so to any one looking to try a new floater salted bakers meaty meals so far iv'e only tryed the beefy ones next the chicken flavour.

So to all thanks and tight lines i,ll keep you posted as how tonight go,s/forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif.

Big Sky

try the beach casting method if its allowed..............

Try a peice of naan bread, it will stay on the hook a bit better. They might not like it although ive yet to find anything 'bready' that they wont takeif they are up for it on the topwhen presented ok.

Try Drenman Double Strenth Fly leader olive green satin finish as your hook lenth material , hook lenth not less than 5ft I use an ordinary domestic candle cut to size depending how far I'm casting and trap it bettween two drenman grippas,hook lenth tied to a small swivel . The main difference to whats been said is hooks , when floater fishing I always use hooks with an out turned eye , caught a lot more since changing my hooks,