Pole Float Confusion
Confused? It's not surprising with the vast array of pole floats out there to tempt you, and if you're like me you just can't help yourself. 'You can never have enough floats!'
There are loads of ready-made rigs out there these days, many of which are really good. But there is nothing like making your own rigs up — tailoring a rig for a venue yourself and then catching on it always adds to my enjoyment.
So where to start? Is there a float that covers all bases? What size of float? What do I need? These are some of the many questions you might ask yourself.
To start with, I would ignore all these floats that say this is for corn, this is for pellet and this is for meat. Yes, some shapes are better for certain baits, but it can get too confusing to start with. The only venue where shape is more important is rivers, but we'll touch on this later.
So how do you select one float from another?
You can make things easier by looking at a float's make-up and design, so let's start there.
Pick up any pole float and they'll all be a variation of a shape — round, pear, straight, and diamond. They will all tend to be made of balsa, nylon, plastic, cane and wire. All these variations make a float act and work in different ways. We could go well in to depth with this, but let's start with some easy-to-use basics.
Float shape
A round shape will give better stability than a straight stick shape, but a straight stick will give better bite detection than a round shape as there is less resistance. So a round-bodied float would be better in flowing water than a straight float. Some floats look tear-shaped, going thinner towards the top — known as body down. With a tear shape down, the thinner top cuts through the water better, giving less resistance in the wind and more stability to the rig. An upside-down tear shape is known as body up; these are good for flowing waters as the water pressure created on top of the body helps to keep the float from riding out of the water when held back. They're also useful when laying line on the bottom of a windy stillwater. Straight floats can make good canal floats as they offer little resistance to bite indication and on the strike help hook shy-biting fish. Most float bodies are a variation on the above — however slight — giving you an idea of what they are best suited for.
Stems
Wire stems will naturally add a pre-load to the float, making it sit up quicker as well as adding more stability in rougher conditions. Whereas a nylon stem is more neutrally buoyant, making the float want to half lay on its side, but a little tap and it will sink slowly. Carbon is very similar to nylon in that it's not heavy yet sinks slowly. Carbon is far easier to make into very fine, long stems, helping to give good stability, but the downside is it breaks easily. That said, being thinner than nylon but not heavy like a wire stem, carbon gives you quite a bit of flexibility within one float — a bit of an all-rounder.
Float tops / tips
Most pole float tips will be made from plastic, in different thicknesses to give different amounts of buoyancy. This can help when trying to fish heavier baits or fishing over depth to combat tow or flow. Some plastic tips are hollow — this aids visibility at a distance as the light almost makes them light up; hollow tips will also add a degree more buoyancy. As with float stems, wire is sometimes used as it wants to sink. Wire-tip floats are mostly used for very sensitive canal floats; these floats can be extremely hard to set up and use. Carbon is also used, which gives very much the same result as wire, although carbon is easier to set up. A fine smear of Vaseline helps keep a delicate float from sinking when you don't want it to. Nylon is also used — this is a little in between plastic, wire and carbon, as nylon is more neutrally buoyant; it will sink with the slightest of taps. It is far easier to set up than wire and carbon-tipped floats but gives very good sensitivity.
So is there such a thing as an all-rounder that suits just about all venues like lakes, ponds and slow to medium-flow rivers?
In short, yes there is. What you're looking for is a round-bodied float or sort of rugby ball shape. The best stem to look for is a nice long carbon stem, and the tip of the float wants to be plastic.
The long carbon stem and plastic tip will give good stability in all sorts of conditions with all sorts of baits, making it ideal for fishing most waters. Fished shirt-button style, you can get a nice even steady fall, or by grouping shot together to create a bulk you'll be able to get a hook bait down quicker.
If you're heading out on the river, bulk shotting by grouping the shot together or by using an olivette will work better when fishing moving water or deep lakes. A bulk placed around 2ft from the hook, with a few small dropper shot between the bulk and the hook length loop, will force the bait down to the depth of the bulk, then the last 2ft will sink slowly. On flowing water, holding the rig slightly back will cause the last 2ft to flutter up and down in the flow.
Selecting float sizes
As a very general guide:
Floats 4×8 / 0.06 gram and 4×10 / 0.12 gram are more suited to canal fishing — small, delicate floats fished in the very shallow far shelf with tiny baits like squats.
4×12 / 0.21 gram and 4×14 / 0.4 gram sized floats will cover many commercial-style stillwater venues from around 4ft to 5ft deep.
Rivers are a little more complicated and will depend on the flow and depth, but we can still keep things simple. The main thing you need to consider is float stability — you will find a heavier float far easier to control while learning on the river. On a slow-moving river I wouldn't go any smaller than 1 gram, possibly a 1.5 gram to 2 gram while getting to grips with it. The extra weight in the rig will help you swing the rig out and gain control, thus get the rig fishing quicker. Once mastered, you'll possibly find you'll be able to fish lighter floats.
On commercial-style waters, you may want to fish in really shallow margin areas. Look for a round-bodied float with a short nylon stem and plastic tip. You can shot either shirt-button style, or with a small bulk depending on how you want the bait to fall through the water. If you're after margin monsters, I tend to use a bulk as this can help combat foul hooking. If the wind gets up, a bigger float capacity will aid you to hold position. Add depth to the rig to drag bottom like an anchor if the water starts to tow with the wind.
Shotting pole floats can be difficult, with the use of small shot far from helping. One of the best things you can get for setting up pole floats is a Dosapiombo. This simple little device has neutral buoyancy in water; all you need to do is clip your chosen pole float into the top and place it in a jar of water that is deep enough to allow the float to sink to the correct depth. I use a shotting tube as shown in the picture below. Both of these handy items are available through our store — clicking the pictures will take you to them.
Slowly add shot or styles to the Dosapiombo until the float sits in the water at the correct height. The table below will help give you a rough guide on which size shot to use. One thing to bear in mind is that your rig will sit differently in tap water than river or lake water, so you may need to remove or add weight once at your chosen venue.
Want to know more about making rigs up? then head over to the next chapter
You also find my shotting guides here
| Float Size | Capacity in grams |
| 4 x 8 | 0.06 |
| 4 x 10 | 0.12 |
| 4 x 12 | 0.21 |
| 4 x 14 | 0.32 |
| 4 x 16 | 0.51 |
| 4 x 18 | 0.70 |
| 4 x 20 | 1 |
| 6 x 20 | 1.5 |
All calculations are approximate