Whats happened to the old float skills?

[BoldBear]

When I was writing about river floats on another post I mentioned the usual ‘Sticks’, ‘Avons’ and ‘Balsas’ and I was also going to mention the ‘Ducker’ which we used to use when there was a strong downstream wind.

I haven’t seen any Duckers (yes it is a ‘D’ ) in the shops nowerdays.
Do they still sell them in tackleshops? or do you have to make them yourself, or spend a fortune buying them from specialist float makers?

And what about the other floats like the ‘Chubbers’ or the ‘Fluted trotters’ and the ‘Perch bobbers’ and many more?

It seems that a lot of the old floats skills and knowledge we learnt in the past are being lost.
Most river anglers today just chuck out a feeder or a Carp rig and just sit there watching their rod(s) and a lot of the skills that we learnt in the past seem to be fast disappearing; even though they are as relevant today as they ever were.

What thoughts do others have on this subject?

Is it just because no-one fishes rivers today ? or is it because most anglers today either fish for Carp or fish the artificially stocked commercial fisheries with their cafes, tackleshops, even banked swims and easy fishing, and nobody seems to want to work and use their watercraft to catch fish today?

What are your views?

[fullcreel]

I buy my 'trad' floats on evil bay. They cost more but as they are generally handmade they have a nice feel about them, less of a 'plasticity' about them.
Few anglers learn how to 'lay on', or long trot nowadays, either sitting on a feeder or fishing comercials, using pole tactics.
Shame, but thats the way things go.

[Maddison_Twatter]

I am guilty of not fishing my river with a float mainly because its rather fast flowing and deep. Having said that i would like to try it. Could you recomend a suitable float for such river.

[al84]

gonna get a few decent floats for my canal dyke thingy mobobby whatever u want to call it lol just hope dont snap up and lose em lol

[BoldBear]

Originally Posted by Maddison_Twatter

I am guilty of not fishing my river with a float mainly because its rather fast flowing and deep. Having said that i would like to try it. Could you recomend a suitable float for such river.

I haven't fished a deep and fast flowing river for quite a few years now except for when the Thames was in flood when I searched out a swim that had relatively slack water and fished an Avon with my shot bunched a foot from the hook and managed to catch a few nice Chub on worm.

I chose an Avon float because it had a nice pronounced shoulder and therefore didn't ride up when I held it back and I bunched the shot because of the slightly turbulent water below the surface and wanted to keep my bait near the bottom, and I chose worm because I thought that there must have been hundreds of them that had been washed in from the flooded fields. It may have been better to use a leger in those sort of conditions especially as the chub couldn't have been able to see much washing past them in the muddy flood water but my weird logic told me that the float might follow a similar route to any drifting food as it hit the edge of the slack, and it seemed to work.

Ill have a look in my 'Billy Lane - Float Fishing' bible tonight and see what he recomends for fast flowing deep swims.

[fishypaul]

its sad to say that the only floats in my tackle shop are wagglers,
i wouldn't mind betting in the next decade the likes of the ducker and chubber floats will become things of the past and the skill in using them forgotten

[Greenheart]

A big Avon or crowquill Avon with the shot bunched up to keep your bait down in the current is a great float for fast deep water. I've used really big ones with 6-7 swan shot on them. We call them Toppers down our way after Topper Haskins, a local matchman who had this method down to a fine art. A large sliding float with a bit of old pole elastic tied as a stop knot can also work well. Like Boldbear says, you need a float with a good sholder to hold back against the current....

[peakoverload]

Without meaning to sound like an old fart, I think we are loosing a lot of angling skills due to changes in the sport over the last 20 years which aren't always for the better.

When I was a kid Carp angling was effectively a 'division' of Coarse Angling, now it has practically become Coarse Angling. Again as a kid we called Roach, Rudd, Bream, Dace etc by their actual names now they are collectively called Silvers, they don't even warrant an individual name anymore.

As a kid I'd travel miles and miles in search of a water that held decent Bream, Roach, Tench, now most waters are densely stocked with Carp and anglers only concentrate on catching them and ignore other species.

As a kid float fishing was a skill that took years to master with so many different floats for different conditions, so many different shotting patterns, so many different ways of fishing it, trotting, on the drop, lift method etc. When you walked into a tackle shop you'd be presented with a range of dozens and dozens of floats of all different types, shapes and sizes. Now you walk into a tackle shop and you'll be lucky to find more than 6 different ones and even then they are essentially the same type usually a variation of a peakcock waggler but more often a pellet waggler. I don't think I've seen a stick float in a tackle shop for years, I honestly think I was 15 the last time I saw a stick float!

The reason for this is clearly the dominance of Carp fishing, frequently when I go fishing I'm the only angler float fishing and I frequently get odd looks from others wondering why I'm not sitting in front of a battery of rods on alarms or quiver tips. When I go fishing I almost always fish two rods, yes one is a Carp rod on a bite alarm but then the other is almost always a float rod. Yes I do try to avoid the smaller fish of all species and try to target the specimens but rarely exclusively target Carp. As for rivers, even fast flowing ones, I will almost always try trotting a float through a swim as there is no ledgering method that comes close to the presentation that this allows or provides the thrill or water craft that it teaches either.

I honestly believe we are loosing so many skills and water craft due to the domination of Commercials and Carp fishing as so many anglers these days do the same thing every time, hair rig some pellets on a chod rig and whack it out to an island or margin, put the rod on an alarm and wait. To some that may be fishing, to me it's lazy and requires little more skill than scooping up trout in a net at a trout farm!

[BoldBear]

Originally Posted by BoldBear

Ill have a look in my 'Billy Lane - Float Fishing' bible tonight and see what he recomends for fast flowing deep swims.

Last night I looked through my float bibles (Float Fishing by Ivan Marks and Float Fishing by Billy Lane) to find what floats they suggested for fast turbulent deep water and if my memory serves me right (it was a bit late) It seems that Ivan suggested large Balsas and Avons and Billy suggested large sliding Balsas, large Chubbers and Avons all shotted with the shot bunched together around 2ft from the hook with a smaller drop shot between the bulk shot and the hook.

NB. Just incase someone didn’t know Chubbers are just like a large Avon without the long stem below it. And Balsas look like very thin cigars or thick stick floats made entirely of Balsa.

[crutchley]

i've gotta say i agree on the float comments, i'm only 23 coming 24 and i' addcitced to float fishing, i prefer it over feeder/ledger tactics anyday, i get all the comments from my mates " why use a stick when u can use a lead?" i just think with the float you never know whats goin take that bait and make your float slide away into the depths one minute it could be a small dace the next it could be a decnt chub or barbel!