FLOAT FISHING?

i am new to carp fishing, and not much angling experience in total, but i love float fishing. watching that little foat bob then go under really gets me going! can anyone tell me of any good set ups for float fishing for carp, or any general advice? should i be aiming for bottom feeding fish or take a risk and fish on surface if there is a sign they may be top feeding?
help pls, i am catching fish by using a waggler and either floating bread or sinking sweetcorn/maggots but would appreciate ALL the help i can get.
cheers

Andrew,
If your catching then your doing it the right way mate. I would suggest you always start on the bottom and mark the exact depth of the swim against your rod. This way you can move the float up the line if you see some fish up in the water and you can quickly go straight back to the right depth in seconds without plumbing the swim again. The most important thing is to feed all the time even if it's just a couple of pellets or maggots every 20 or 30 seconds, the more fish in the swim the more feed you put in, but do it regularly.

Put about ? of the shot around the base of the float and use the rest as a bulk of shot above your hooklength (use small shots rather than 1 or 2 bigger ones) when you are fishing on the bottom and spread them out when you are fishing up in the water, the bulk gets the bait down to the bottom quickly and helps keep it still as well as pulling it away from small fish on it's way down and when it's spread out the shot allows the bait to fall through the water more naturally.

hope this helps.

sorry the ? should have been 2/3rds but the symbol came out as a ?

One tip is to fish your bait a inch above the bottom. This reduces the false bites etc you may get from fishing bumping into your line.

Andrew,
I dont know what sort of waters you're fishing but it sounds like you'd really enjoy margin fishing.
If you can fish close up to a bed of rushes where nobody can access apart from at the sides thats ideal.
My favourite method is to use a very small quill foat or crystal with no weights on your line.
If you fish on the bottom you can often reel in until the line to your bait becomes taut and the float will cock. as soon as a fish touches your bait, the float will lie down on the surface, this is the time to strike.
I often fish the margins with the float flat on the water. Any touch by a fish is obvious. By the time the float cocks from the fish on the bait, you should be able to hit the bite.
Bread flake dipped in honey is a killer bait. Throw a few loose pellets of bread in every cast. You're likely to get tench like this aswell.
Hope this helps.

MMmmmmmmargin fishing...the best!

Most fun is with a split cane rod and a centrepin, most efficent is with a good fixed spool reel and a light but powerful 11-12 foot stalking rod (barbel rods are ideal)

I use a pit of peacock quill, plain white, fixed bottom end only with a rubber. I dont use split shot, just putty. The reason being is I fish snaggy margins, and the putty just rubs off if the fish goes through weeds/rushes etc.

Bait is normally some form of paste.

thanx alot for the advice, i am sure otherswould have found it useful aswell. wiil try the honey and bread, that sounds like a good bait