This article is about freshwater angling floats. For fishing net floats, see fishing net. For glass net or dropline floats, see glass float.
Selection of UK (top) and US (bottom) fishing floats
A fishing float or bobber is a lightweight buoy used in angling, usually attached to a fishing line. Angling using a float is sometimes called float fishing.
firstly, it serves as a visual bite indicator that helps the angler assess underwater status of the baitedhook and decide whether to start retrieving the line;
secondly, it can suspend the hook and bait at a predetermined depth, which helps the angler target fish in specific depths;
and lastly, due to its buoyancy, it can carry the baited hook to otherwise inaccessible areas of water by drifting along the prevailing current.
Design and functions
A typical float consists of a body with lower specific gravity than water, which provides the buoyancy to remain afloat at the water surface); a brightly colored rod at the top, which makes it easier to be seen from afar; and an attachment at the bottom that suspends the hook. Sometimes a small counterweight is also placed at the bottom to help the float to stay upright against wind and waves.
The float is used to enable the angler to cast out a bait away from the shore or boat while maintaining a reference point to where the bait is unlike bottom or leger fishing. The angler will select an appropriate float after taking into account the strength of the current (if any), the wind speed, the size of the bait he or she is using, the depth the angler wishes to present that bait at and the distance the bait is to be cast.[1] Usually, the line between the float and hook will have small weights attached, ensuring that the float sits vertically in the water with only a small brightly coloured tip remaining visible. The rest of the float is usually finished in a dull neutral colour to render it as inconspicuous as possible to the fish. Each float style is designed to be used in certain types of conditions such as slow or fast rivers, windy or still water or small confined waters such as canals.
History
Fishing rod float. Lake Baikal. Eastern Siberia
It is impossible to say with any degree of accuracy who first used a float for indicating that a fish had taken the bait, but it can be said with some certainty that people used pieces of twig, bird feather quills or rolled leaves as bite indicators, many years before any documented evidence. The first known mention of using a float appears in the book "Treatyse of fysshynge wyth an Angle" [2] written by Juliana Berners in 1496:
All maner lynes that be not for the grounde must haue flotes, and the rennyng ground lyne must haue a flote, the lyeng ground lyne must haue a flote.
Cork fishing floats
The method described, involved boring a hole through a cork so the line could be passed through and trapped with a quill. Later books such as "the Arte of Angling," a 1577 text edited by Gerald Eades Bentley in 1956, and the classic work "The Compleat Angler" first published in 1653, written by Isaak Walton gave greater detail on fishing and using floats.
Prior to about 1800, anglers made their own floats, a practice that many still carry on today.[3] As angling became more popular, companies started to make floats in different styles to supply the growing demand. By 1921, companies such as Wadhams had at least 250 mainly celluloid floats in their catalog.[4]
Since those early days, the fishing float has become the subject of much practical and theoretical change. English anglers such as Peter Drennan (Drennan International)[5] and Kenneth Middleton (Middy Tackle) and American fishermen like Chicago's ex World Champion Mick Thill (Thill Floats) [6] have built up large companies designing and marketing fishing floats. The English companies have been supported by major league anglers such as Ivan Marks, Benny Ashurst and Billy Lane.
The Avon float [8] is a straight float with a body at the top. It was designed to cope with the fast flow conditions of the English River Avon. Many early floats were Avon style having a cork body pushed onto a crow quill. It is fished attached to the line top and bottom.
Bubble
Bubble floats are small hollow balls which are used to control the fishing line. They may have the facility to be partially filled with water to control how much float is above the water. They are used in situations where a normal float cannot be cast, such a working close to the edge of reeds or heavy surface plant growth. The bubble float can be allowed to drift into the area without tangling.
Dink
The Dink Float is most commonly made of a cylinder of dark foam with a smaller cylinder of cork on the top painted for indicator. The line is run through the top, wrapped around the cylinder and through the bottom. Main advantage is that the float needs no stopper on the main line, the wrap of line between the top of bottom of float will hold it in place.
Popper
A popper float, commonly called a 'popping cork' is designed to mimic a large fish feeding at the surface with rod action. There are different styles of popper floats, some use a metal wire with beads at each end to make a clicking noise when pulled through the water, while more modern floats make use of a concave top, which make a deep chugging sound when pulled through the water, imitating the sound of large predator fish feeding at the surface. Some popping corks also have pellets inside, designed to mimic bait fish jumping at the surface when rattled.
Quill
The quill is one of the earliest floats, originally it was a bird feather quill but with the opening up of new worlds, porcupine quills from Africa became a standard for the float. It is fished in the same way as a stick float.
Self-cocking
Self-cocking floats can be of many styles but they are all weighted so that in the water they automatically stand upright without the use of shot or weights on the fishing line.
Stick
The Stick Float is a straight float with a taper.[9] It is always attached to the line both top and bottom. They are made from two different materials, a light, buoyant top section of balsa wood and a heavy stem of hard grade cane, non-buoyant hardwood, or plastic. Unlike the Avon float, the stick has no body; it is just a tapered rod.
Waggler
A waggler float [10] is the term given to any float which is attached only at the bottom to the line. They come in two different types, straight or bodied. These two types can come both with and without inserts (antennas). They are made from a variety of materials including quills (such as peacock), balsa wood, cane, plastic and reed.
With direction control
Fishing floats with direction control
Floats with direction control change direction by planing or moving to one side when given a tug.[11]
Stages of manufacturing a fishing float
The slider and other floats, from A Book on Angling by Francis Francis, 1876
Techniques for using fishing floats with direction control
Notes
↑ Lane, Billy (1976). Float fishing: tackle and techniques for still and running water. London: Cassell. ISBN0304294667.
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques include hand-gathering, spearing, netting, angling, shooting and trapping, as well as more destructive and often illegal techniques such as electrocution, blasting and poisoning.
A fishing rod is a long, thin rod used by anglers to catch fish by manipulating a line ending in a hook. At its most basic form, a fishing rod is a straight rigid stick/pole with a line attached to one end ; however, modern rods are usually elastic and generally have the line stored in a reel mounted at the rod handle, which is hand-cranked and controls the line retrieval, as well as numerous line-restricting rings that distribute bending stress along the rod and help dampening down/prevent line whipping and entanglement. To better entice fish, baits or lures are dressed onto the one or more hooks attached to the line, and a bite indicator is used, some of which might be incorporated as part of the rod itself.
A fishing line is any flexible, high-tensile cord used in angling to tether and pull in fish, in conjunction with at least one hook. Fishing lines are usually pulled by and stored in a reel, but can also be retrieved by hand, with a fixed attachment to the end of a rod, or via a motorized trolling outrigger.
The common chub, also known as the European chub or simply chub, is a species of European freshwater ray-finned fish in the carp family Cyprinidae, that frequents both slow and moderate rivers, as well as canals, lakes and still waterbodies of various kinds.
Fly fishing is an angling technique that uses an ultra-lightweight lure called an artificial fly, which typically mimics small invertebrates such as flying and aquatic insects to attract and catch fish. Because the mass of the fly lure is insufficient to overcome air resistance, it cannot be launched far using conventional gears and techniques, so specialized tackles are used instead and the casting techniques are significantly different from other forms of angling. It is also very common for the angler to wear waders, carry a hand net, and stand in the water when fishing.
Angling is a fishing technique that uses a fish hook attached to a fishing line to tether individual fish in the mouth. The fishing line is usually manipulated via a fishing rod, although rodless techniques such as handlining also exist. Modern angling rods are usually fitted with a fishing reel that functions as a cranking device for storing, retrieving and releasing out the line, although Tenkara fishing and traditional cane pole fishing are two rod-angling methods that do not use any reel. The fish hook itself can be additionally weighted with a denser tackle called a sinker, and is typically dressed with an appetizing bait to attract and entice the fish into swallowing the hook, but sometimes an inedible fake/imitation bait with multiple attached hooks is used instead of a single hook with edible bait. Some type of bite indicator, such as a float, a bell or a quiver tip, is often used to relay underwater status of the hook to the surface and alert the angler of a fish's presence.
Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishing for survival and livelihood.
A fishing lure is any one of a broad category of artificial angling baits that are inedible replicas designed to mimic prey animals that attract the attention of predatory fish, typically via appearances, flashy colors, bright reflections, movements, vibrations and/or loud noises which appeal to the fish's predation instinct and entice it into gulping the lure. Angling activities using lures are known as lure fishing.
Handline fishing, or handlining, is a fishing technique where a single fishing line is held in the hands, rather than with a fishing rod like the usual angling, of which handlining is a subtype. Handlining is not to be confused with handfishing, which is catching fish by hand. When handlining, one or more fishing lures or baited hooks are attached to the line, and a fishing lure and often a weight and/or a fishing float can also be attached to the line. Handlining is among the oldest forms of fishing and is still practiced throughout the world today.
Boilies are a type of artificial fishing bait made from boiled paste that usually consists of fishmeals, milk proteins, bird foods, semolina and soya flour, which are mixed with egg white as a binding agent. The mixture is then boiled to form hard, round balls that diffuse evenly and slowly in water, and additional flavourings and aromatic attractants are usually included in the mixture to enhance the olfactory appeal to the fish. The spherical shape also allows the baits to be catapulted accurately when fishing at distant waters.
A trotline is a heavy fishing line with shorter, baited branch lines commonly referred to as snoods suspending down at intervals using clips or swivels, with a hook at the free end of each snood.
Shortfloating or Short fishing is a fishing method that has been employed in running water by river anglers for many decades, and is also used by lake anglers. The method that allows the angler to selectively target species of fish by controlling hook length. Short floating is used in the river pools alongside runs, where resting fish have time to consider and take bait.
Rock fishing is fishing from rocky outcrops into the sea. It is a popular pastime in Australia and New Zealand. It can be dangerous and many people have died. This may improve as more people who are rock fishing are beginning to wear life jackets.
Fishing tackle is the equipment used by anglers when fishing. Almost any equipment or gear used in fishing can be called fishing tackle, examples being hooks, lines, baits/lures, rods, reels, floats, sinkers/feeders, nets, spears, gaffs and traps, as well as wires, snaps, beads, spoons, blades, spinners, clevises and tools that make it easy to tie knots.
Coarse fishing is a phrase commonly used in Great Britain and Ireland. It refers to the angling for rough fish, which are fish species considered undesirable as food or game fish. Freshwater game fish are all salmonids, particularly salmon, trout and char. Generally, coarse fish are freshwater fish that are not salmonids, though there is often disagreement over whether grayling should be classified as a game fish or a coarse fish.
Groundbait is a fishing bait that is either thrown or "balled" into the water in order to olfactorily attract more fish to a designated area for more efficient catching via angling, netting, trapping, or even spearing and shooting. Groundbaits are typically scattered separately from the hook and usually before even casting any rod or net, although in bottom fishing they can be deployed synchronously with hookbaits while contained inside a gradual-release device also attached to the fishing line known as a method feeder.
A dropline is a commercial fishing rig consisting of a long fishing line set vertically down into the water, with a series of baited hooks attached to the ends of side-branching secondary lines called snoods. Dropline fishing, or droplining, is a specialized angling technique.
A bite indicator is any signalling device used in angling which alerts the fisherman of what is happening at the hook end of the fishing line, particularly whether a fish has swallowed the hook. It is the quintessential tackle used in bait fishing, which depends partly on luck and often requires unpredictable periods of time passively waiting for fish to bite the hook.
Fishing techniques are methods for catching fish. The term may also be applied to methods for catching other aquatic animals such as molluscs and edible marine invertebrates.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to fishing:
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