The all-important tell-tale shot
Though a lot
of my fishing over the years was done with legering tackle, and though
I think that legering often produces more big fish than float fishing
does, I know why many anglers find float fishing fascinating.
The many different indications of a bite that a float can give affords
anglers such exciting sport that even with my less than perfect eyesight
I enjoyed float fishing very much for so very many years.
I do hope that I am not trying to teach the basics of bite detection with
float tackle but there is one aspect of presenting a bait beneath a float
that it is very important to understand if you are to fish efficiently
and I do sometimes see some anglers who fail to understand this.
It is all to do with just how near to your baited hook you position the
weight (usually a split shot) that is sometimes called the tell-tale shot.
Put the weight too far from your hook and bites will often not register
properly or quickly enough.
On the other hand if you put this shot too near to the hook shy biting
fish may be put off from taking the bait properly.
So many things need considering when deciding how close to the hook to
position your lowest shot including the venue and the conditions and the
kind or size of the bait and the abundance of one species of fish or size
of fish. You just have to experiment and work it out for yourself on each
day.
In recent years though I have often fished with the tell-tale weight consisting
of a tiny swivel instead of a split shot.
I find this an advantage for a variety of reasons. If you use certain
baits, or if you hook into a leaf at this time of the year in autumn,
this causes your line near the hook to twist up and tangle when you wind
in the tackle and a swivel instead of a shot helps to avoid this.
Perhaps it is even more important that when you lose a hook after getting
snagged on weeds or other obstructions you need to replace that hook with
a new one tied on as near as possible the same length of line as the lost
hook.
This avoids the need to mess about tying a new hook length if you buy,
or tie yourself, hooks that are on the same length of line every time.
Simply attach your new hook length to swivel via the loop knot on the
new tackle.