The swing tip bite detection device invented by the late Jack Clayton and perfected by Fred Foster, who is also no longer with us, is not seen in use these days as much as was once the case.

The heyday of the tip coincided with the popularity of specimen hunting, and big fish hunters, like myself at the time, poured scorn on swing tips.

With the arrogance and inexperience of youth we claimed that the only worthwhile bite detection method when fishing with leger tackle was touch legering where you feel for bites with the line in your fingers.

Touch legering is a super efficient way of fishing on flowing water, but it is far less efficient on stillwaters, and in recent years I have come to like the swing tip method very much because it allows both normal bites and drop back bites to be quickly indicated and on a suitably stiff and shortish rod it can be a deadly way of fishing despite the fact that swing tips tangle easily and make accurate casting a bit difficult.

When the tip first became popular, schoolboy anglers seeing the indicator hanging down from the rod tip would often shout derisively 'Hey mister, your rod's broken'.

The commonest way of attaching a swing tip to the rod tip is by way of a screw fitting, which is an integral part of the top runners used quite often today, but this method does tend to become unscrewed while you fish and cast.

I prefer myself to have a fishing rod specially adapted for swing tipping.

The best way is to have your tip runner whipped on about an inch from the extreme tip of the rod and to slide the rubber tubing on the swing tip over the exposed rod tip.

Alternatively though you can use the screw fitting supplied with ready made up swing tips from the tackle shop and super glue the screw permanently into your top runner.





John Neville