After writing about terminal tackles last week, it is important that I now cover the way that angler
s, especially float-fishing anglers, fasten the actual weights that are put on to the line between the hook and the float.
In exceptional cricumstances, this can involve having no weight on the line at all for what is called free lining or just one heavy weight positioned very close to the hook when the so-called 'lift method' is used.
Normally though, the weights are called split shot and these are positioned in various ways on the line and in various sizes depending on the depth of the water or the depth at which the fish are feeding or, when fishing a river, the speed of the current.
I remember writing many years ago about a day when I had won a fishing match on the river Witham. The angler who had fished in the next peg to me asked me about the way I had fished what we then called the 'loose float' method, with the float fastened on the line by its bottom end only instead of top and bottom, and held in place by a couple of split shot nipped on to the line on each side of the float.
I do not claim to have invented the system, and I'm sure other anglers had done it years earlier, but I had never seen, heard or read about the method myself.
The opinion expressed by fellow competitors was that the method would not catch on and was not a good idea. Much to my amusement then, the method not only became widespread but is by far the most widely used method of float attatchment used by the majority of anglers.
I do not mean to boast but years ago I wrote that sometimes a weight locked onto the line a short distance above the hook was better than sliding weights that a well-known angling writer often reccomended.
A far better angler than I am, the now deceased Peter Stone, said I was wrong. Strange that, because carp anglers now often use a heavy fixed weight above the hook which causes afish to dash off in alarm and often hooks itself. It's called the 'bolt rig'.
John Neville
