FLOATS
There are probably more anglers hooked on floats than there are pike! There are many patterns of pike float available in the tackle shops, some brightly coloured, some drab and camouflaged, there are benefits from both, visibility for the angler and ‘invisibility’ to the fish, that's the theory anyway!

Two types of attachment serve us well, bottom only fixing by a loop or swivel and a through the middle attachment via a piece of tubing running through the body of the float. Both have wildly different applications and should not be used in each others rolls.

Bottom end attachment, whether this includes a small amount of weight to semi-cock the float or plain with just a loop or swivel, are for legered bait fishing, in most situations this would be with a dead bait, but small live baits can be legered too. The advantage of the loaded floats (pencil shaped) are that they will always be visible as they always stand upright after casting regardless of line tension or depth setting, the unloaded would lay flat as we would normally set the rig to fish at least a foot over depth. In choppy conditions an unloaded float could give too many false indications as it stood up, laid flat over and over again. ( see 'rigs' ) It is useful to have both types available to suit conditions, as you will surely find the conditions can change, if its calm you can use the unloaded float and if the conditions deteriorate and become rough and the surface choppy, you can then change to the semi-loaded version! (these floats should be between 6 and 9 inches in length, around 5/8” to 3/4” in diameter and ideally coloured 50/50 black and flame orange or similar fluorescent colour for good visibility).

'Through the middle' slider floats

The ‘through the middle’ floats can vary in style and shape again, from round (in sizes from 1/2” to 2 1/2” in diameter) through egg shaped to long slim shapes and a variety of colours to suit the method being used, these may be a drab camouflaged colours, plain black or green, through two colours to even transparent with or without a bright fluorescent coloured top for visibility.

These floats are suited best to free roving and paternoster fishing in both still waters and rivers etc. (see 'rigs' ) The depth settings can be fixed by either a stop knot and bead or by attaching the float to the uptrace top swivel with silicon tubing (greater detail of such points will be discussed in the appropriate methods pages and features that follow).

Typical audible 'drop arm' bite indicator

Those with bright colours are suitable for surface methods where visibility is of paramount importance, the camouflaged, green and black or transparent ones without any bright colours would be for sunken float methods, where alternative bite indication was to be used . The floats with bright colours can be used for sunken float methods like paternostering, if no others are available. Such methods suit windy conditions where lines to surface fished floats create drag which will perhaps pull your float under giving the false impression of a bite, in this situation you may well be better off setting the float at a depth less than the depth being fished and attaching a drop off / drop back bite indicator.

Floats form the most basic and primary form of bite indication in the early days of pike fishing, they also the most positive if set up correctly and are extremely cost effective for those first few exploratory trips or season. As you develop and practice more methods and perhaps fish more frequently, you will probably benefit more by having some form of audible indication to keep you informed of what is going on (heaven knows why, but you watch what is going on for hours and the float disappears when you look away!) If you intend fishing sunken float methods you will most definitely need visual indication, this can be fulfilled by obtaining a drop off / drop back indicator which clips onto your rear rod rest, just below the reel. You can, if you own one or more, combine these with Optonic type bite alarms or ultimately use one of the combined audible / visual drop off alarms such as the ET Backbiter or similar. The clip on indicators from ET, Fox etc. being the cost effective answer for the early days though without a doubt!

More on bite indicators!

next page