I am just learning to float fish, and was wondering what is the best type of float?

That question has many answers. For inexpensive, highly functional floats, I prefer the foam "dink" float. The Thill balsa floats are great, but most are designed for specific functions and you may need several types to fish all the water correctly.

Your best bet is to book a day with one of the many guides who fish floats or buy a good book. It is an easy and productive method, but like anything, if you fully understand it you will do much better.

surecatch - I'm sure there are many interested in this technique who cannot afford a guided trip.

Do you know anything about the technique that might be easy to touch on here and can you recommend a good book?

Heres a couple books,

Float Fishing For Steelhead (Techniques & Tackle) Dave Vedder

Steelhead Jig Fishing (Techniques & Tackle)
Dave Vedder and Drew Harthorn

Plunker: I agree with steelhdfsn (sp') on both the books he recommends. Of the two, Float Fishing for Steelhead offers, by far, the best detailed instructions. You can buy it here

http://www.amatobooks.com/Merchant2/merc...hing_Techniques

Also I have seen numerous articles on float fishing in Salmon Trout Steelheader magazine. If your library has back copies, you should be able to find all the info you can use there.

Thank for the input. I will give the books a try.
Any suggestions for a guide in the Centralia/Chehalis area?
What are the thoughts on the round cork floats? Good / Bad?

fishseeker,
for a guide i'd go with joe superfisky www.fishwithfly.com he will get you float fishing productively.

Thanks for the tips on what to read. Nothing beats a good how-to article or book for fine tuning a student to the proper ways.

Fishseeker: I agree on superfisky. As for the round float I don't much care for them. I believe the long cylindrical dink floats are easier to weight properly. You want a float that goes under easily when you get a strike, but t not so easily it sinks in choppy water. I think the round ones have so much surface area that it’s harder for the fish to pull them under. Just my .02

Don't make this harder than it needs to be. Get yourself a couple of the dink floats, that have the hole bored all the way through. Get some of the bobber stop knots. Get yourself a couple of jigs. Put the stop knot on your main line, then the bead the comes with it, then the bobber, then tie a swivel. Tie on 24 inches or so of leader, then the jig. Leave a tag at the swivel end, and add about an inch of pencil lead.

Fish with this rig until you decide whether jig fishing is for you. Adjust the bobber so that the jig is floating about 1 foot off the bottom. Go higher if the water is clear.

Get yourself some Mucilin line cleaner from the fly fishing section, and apply this to the first 50 feet of your main line. This keeps your line on top of the water, and makes it easier to 'pick up' the line to allow the bobber to float without drag.

There. Now you know more than enough to catch fish on jigs. Go and give it a try. Try a pink jig for starters - that'll catch chums, silvers, and steelies.

Silver Hilton:

I have one minor point of disagreement. I never advise newbies to use a slip float for several reasons. They add several more articles to the tackle list, they are a bit more complicated to rig and they do not lend themselves well to holding back on the float. The ones you describe can be hard to find and they are seldom necessary. If the new float angler gets a 10-foot or longer rod they should be able to fish a fixed float quite well in water up to 10 feet deep. That covers almost all the water they need to fish. Not trying to start an argument, just my .02


AuntyM: Floats are not limited to jig fishing. I use floats very nearly 100% of the time. Often I fish spawn bags, cured eggs or sand shrimp. Floats are great for sand shrimp as thay are much easier on bait . In B.C. where everyone fishes floats, jig are just now becoming popular.

For floats as a general rule I believe the rougher the water the more round and boyant the float should be. A thin float won't stay a float in fast turbulent water. Bright colored tops for big floats are also a plus cause they are much easier to see than dull colors, but maybe that is because I'm colorblind. Thin pencil shaped floats come into play when you are fishing slow water where sensitivity is king. There is virtually an endless amount of float styles that are avaliable, find some that you feel comfortable with, everybody has their own prefernce.

I switched over to float fishing about 5 years ago and I find it so much easier to fish iwth a float vs. drift fishing. Also I think it is perfect for the ocassional fisherman or that friend who is just learning. We all remember how hard it was the first few years trying to tell a bite from a rock. How many fish did we miss, not to mention how much gear we donated to the river. As for floats, I prefer Thill turbo master #3 for 1/4 oz jigs. No extra weight needed to either cast or cock the float properly and I don't need a spinning reel to cast the set up. For most float fishing, be it bait or artificials, I would recommend a dink style float. You can find them from 2" long to 8" by 3" that will raise the titanic. Really a couple of different size floats will get yuo buy for most water. I carry 2 sizes of dinks and the Thills. I think most people rig with the fixed system. It is just as fast to adjust the float depth with a fixed as a slider. The exception being when you want to run very deep, say over 12 feet. Ofcourse, you need a longer rod to cast that much leader.


Tight lines,

MJ

Thanks again for the help. I will purchase some dink floats. have a mixture of other floats so I will experiment and see what I feel comfortable with.

I also picked up the books recomended. There appears to be a lot of good information.

FS