Plasticine
works a treat!
Chatting to a fellow angler recently I was impressed when he told me of
a little dodge that he uses to improve his chances in tricky situations.
If the water is flat calm on the surface it pays dividends to shot your
float down so that only a tiny bit of the float shows above the water.
However, if the surface of the water is rippled by a breeze you need to
have more of the float above the surface if you are to see the bites,
even if you have very keen eyesight.
The angler that I met told me that when the surface is calm he adds a
little bit of plasticine to his tackle instead of the small shot that
is normally used as a telltale.
If a breeze gets up it is a simple thing to do to remove the little blob
of plasticine from the line near the hook and your float then rides higher.
This avoids the tricky business of adding or removing shots during the
day.
This reminded me that many years ago when I used to fish in a very snaggy
spot for barbel I had trouble when nearly every put in my lead weight
would get snagged in the many boulders that lay on the river bed at the
spot.
Since it is often the weight that gets snagged instead of the hook you
can use a bait that masks the hook point including cheese or luncheon
meat for example.
Then you use a tackle rig called a link ledger set up, and instead of
a lead weight, or modern non toxic weight, you simply put a blob of plasticine
on the end of the link.
This pulls free easily if it gets caught up among the stones.