Alloy stem stick floats are prefect for many flowing waters, whether it be a small stream to big rivers. The alloy stem helps to sit the float up faster as well as giving better stability in faster flowing waters. I.E the float always wants to sit up where's a lignum (all wood) type float wants to lay flat.

The shoulder on the float aids holding back hard and coupled with the alloy stem the float is less likely to ride up in the water when doing so.

I like to fish these floats with a small bulk around mid depth slowly tapering out towards the hook length. This helps to get the float ready to indicate any bites quicker while the slower tapered shot below start to dot the float down. You'll be able read bites far better this way as the  float will either be held up (float not settled down) or the float will just sail under.

As a general rule I find a gram to a gram and a half covers many medium flowing rivers, depending on depth. 6 No'4 is roughly 1.2gram (1 No4 = 0.2g)

You don’t need to use No4 shot though as these can be broken down into much smaller No8 and No6 shot to give you more flexibility with your shotting arrangement.

Want to find out more about shotting floats? Check out my shotting guides here even down load to take with you