Float Fishing For Beginners - FULL GUIDE

0:01 [Music] oh my God that's big well I'm super happy to be out fishing again and today I've come to probably one of my favorite sort of day ticket places quite well stocked fishery and it's the perfect place to do a day of float fishing I've been walking around the lake trying to find a good place to actually set up but I think I'm probably going to go around about here reason being is because there's enough space above me to cast and not get caught in the trees which is important especially when you're starting float fishing uh so I can cast easily there's some reads in front of me where I'm sure fish will live and then there's a nice

0:46 snag down here which could hold I don't know perch maybe anyway let's get set [Music] up with the area that I'm going to fish chosen the first step of almost any day of Co fishing is to mix up a little bit of ground bait I'll tip a little bit of that into the bucket I probably only need quarter of a bag it's coming it's coming towards wind time it's at the end of Autumn and you don't really need to put a lot of bait in at this time of year so a little bit of ground bait and what you do is you mix water into the ground bait very slowly little bit of water at a time

1:32 [Applause] time if you put too much water into the ground B it will go really really stodgy and won't break down like you want it to the ideal consistency is so that it's just wet enough to go into a bowl so you can throw it out but then once it goes into the water that will break down and uh attract loads of fish into the swim the trick with ground bait is to not go too crazy straight away but I reckon if I put one ball underneath this tree and then a couple of balls out there where I'm going to start off fishing at least the swim is getting started we're beginning to draw fish into the area and that gives me a little bit of time to set up the

2:24 rods as always I'm eager to get started but before I cast out I need to set up my rod this is a 10t wagler rod wagler is the type of float we're going to be using today named as such because when you cast it kind of Wiggles as it flies through the air anyway a wagler rod is what you're looking for this is 10 ft long so it's quite comfortable for when you're first getting into fishing you can find float rods between 10t and 15 ft long sometimes even longer for River fishing but I definitely wouldn't advise starting fishing with a really long Rod just cuz it's very difficult to handle something like this 10-footer is absolutely perfect I also have a fixed spool reel fixed spool means that the

3:10 spool doesn't move the Reel spins around the outside of it it's very very clever and it's a lot easier to use as a beginner than a center pin reel or a closed face reel or something like that so if you're in your tackle shop or you're buying a reel online look for a fixed spool real this is loaded up with 4 line 4 is pretty much perfect for most float fishing that you're going to be doing you can go stronger if uh you're fishing somewhere with big carp today I'm fishing for silver fish so uh four lound line will be absolutely perfect obviously when you get the Reel the line isn't already on it you have to do that we've actually made a video on our Channel dedicated to you teaching you

3:56 guys how to spool up a fishing reel uh however it's not too difficult basically you tie the line onto the spool or you can potentially cellot tape it onto the spool doesn't really matter uh you close you close the bail arm drop the spool of line that you've bought into a bucket that stops IT from bouncing around or you know zooming around the room uh and it also helps uh wet the line so that when you reel the uh line in through your fingers under tension they it doesn't burn your your fingers you know on the on the friction anyway this is already spooled up and pretty much ready to go I'm going to take the rod tip protectors off of this Rod

4:41 put the two pieces together you want to look down the rod so that you can piece this together with the with the eyes lined up properly because if you don't put it together straight and it's slightly wonky you won't be able to cast so easily then on the front of the Rod handle there's this bit of uh foam which you can turn that opens up the uh reel holder can then clip The Reel into the Reel holder like so and then tighten that down and it screws up tight don't have to screw it really tight but enough just to hold it in place nice and solid now open the bay alarm and take the end of the line

5:30 and thread that through all of the eyes being sure not to miss [Music] any I've thread the line through all of the eyes on the rod now I need to attach my float the float that I'm going to be using today is a wagler float I've gone for a re reasonably short wagler because it's not a particularly deep lake and I don't have to cast too far so I don't need loads of weight on it at the bottom of the float there is a small hole I just need to thread the line through that so that it's slid on and then I'm

6:17 going to take some split shot and pinch them on either side of the float that will help lock it in place and hold it there throughout my session with the float locked in place with two split shot we then need to put a loop in the line beneath the float tying an overhand Loop isn't too difficult but we do have videos on our Channel dedicated to teaching you guys how to tie fishing knots so check out the playlist on our Channel if you're struggling with with any of your knots but once that Loop is created you can then take a ready tied hook link a hook link is the section of line attached to the hook it tends to be lighter than what your your main line is so the aim

7:02 is so that if you get snagged up or you know catch you get a really big fish and it snaps your line you don't lose the float and all of the split shot you just lose the last little bit of line um ready tied uh hook links are helpful when you're using quite Thin Line and small hooks personally I just find it easier to grab a packet of them and use those rather than trying to tie very very fiddly hooks myself so that's the rig complete now we just need to find what the depth is in the swim before we can start [Music] fishing to find the depth of the water in front of me I'm going to use what's called a plummet this is a little weight

7:47 which you can slip your hook underneath and then pop the hook Point into the plastic underneath pull that in and it just uh hangs on your hook there the reason why you have this is because because at the moment I've only got two split shot pinched on either side of my float these are BB split shot the float is actually rated as a four BB float so to pull it down to the set level there you're going to need four split shot but I've only got two on at the moment this means it will sit like this the reason I've done that is because the extra weight of the plummet will now once I cast out pull the float completely under if I'm set too shallow however if I'm set Too Deep the float will sit up something like that once you've adjusted

8:34 the depth by sliding the split shot up or down the line like so you'll then be able to get the perfect depth and then add the rest of your split shot that you need to get the float showing with just the red tip out of the water all of the setting up is done sometimes does take a little while when you're float fishing to get everything set up perfectly but checking the depth making sure that your float is shot it down correctly it's all worth doing and it definitely improves your chances of catching because I put the ground B in at the start those fish have had a little bit of time to start feeding hopefully and although it is very very cold today I'm hoping that we can get a fish reasonably quickly I'm going to put two maggots on the hook

9:21 just gently hook the ends if you hook them quite thinly just through the very end then they will uh wriggle for longer reel that down and I'm going to try underneath the tree first so a little pinch of maggots thrown under there and then I'll swing the float underneath I barely even have to cast it's that close in but um later on I'm going to fish a bit further out and give that a try and when I do that I'll teach you guys about how to cast how to sink the line but I thought I'd start really close in down the edge because it's easy and I'm hoping there's some nice fish down [Music]

10:10 there oh my God that's [Music] big okay this is um this is not what I was expecting I was just about to catapult I did just catapult some bait out over the over the other spot and I didn't even strike the fish struck me rather than the other way around now I have got a very small hook on the end it's a size 20 so I can't pull too hard cuz I might um I might lose the fish or I might snap the lies so you got to take it easy um there's no rush although I'm quite excited to see what it is I'm going to

10:56 take my time just put a nice little Bend in the rod and uh and take it easy take it slow oh wow it's a tench now this time of year is not really associated with tench fishing normally you're going for tench in the spring but I won't say no to a nice tench the sort of fish that you're most likely to catch when you get into float fishing are roach rud gudgin maybe bream and sometimes if you're lucky like I am right now you might get a tench I'm adjusting the drag on my reel

11:44 sometimes cuz if a fish really starts running you just need to give it a little bit of uh little bit of line cuz if the fish is likely to to break your line then you can adjust the drag which will let it take that line rather than snapping it got the net waiting underneath it and in it goes wow that's cool I'm going to need the discor for this one cuz it's swallowed the hook a little bit we've got a video on our Channel about using the discer but if you have a little bit of tension on the line when you slide the discosia down into the fish's mouth the hook should come out really easy every time oh tents are

12:30 really really slimy and they're also quite wrigly so hold them over the net so if I drop the fish it's not coming to any damage it's just going to fall back into the net and there it is not a bad start to today's [Music] session well that tenent will have definitely Disturbed The Swim a little bit so I'm going to do now is feed a few more maggots over the top at the beginning of the session I took uh couple of bowls of ground bait like this and threw them into the swim what ground bait does is it sinks to the bottom and then creates a sort of carpet

13:16 of food for the fish I'll throw another small nugget of ground bait in now because what that's doing is that's just giving the fish scent in the water it's giving them stuff to sort of grub around in but the grite doesn't really fill them up very much it it's it's very dusty it's full of small particles of Attraction but not a lot of food there's two sort of ways to feed and normally I'll do a combination of both but the maggots if you feed them little and often so just a tiny Pinch at a time one tiny pinch uh every cast maybe they're like falling through the water they're drawing the smaller fish in what tends to happen when you feed Little often is you get a sh of small fish that are waiting for more maggots to fall down

14:03 that's great if you're trying to bring the fish up in the water if you're trying to catch numbers of roach rud uh perch however if you want some bigger fish in the swim uh and you want to try and get your bait down near the bottom where those larger fish are then little bows of ground bait every now and then is probably a good way to go my personal thoughts on float fishing I like to put in a ball of ground bait or two at the beginning and then if I'm going to leave the spot alone which is what I'm about to do now I'll put another ball of ground bit in so that ball of ground bit now has just gone down to the bottom the fish will start moving in on it and in the meantime I can take my other Rod which has got a bigger float on it and I can cast out to the reads over there just because uh that Swim's been a

14:49 little bit disturbed and I want to see what fish are living out there in the deeper water little pinch of maggots in the Catapult because this spots further out I need to use a catapult to feed around it because I can't throw maggots that [Music] far as well as the rod and reel which I've already shown you there are some other essential bits of kit which will help you with your float fishing these items are a landing net not every fish that

15:37 you catch will be small enough to just swing out of the water and especially when you're using quite small Hooks and light line landing net can be really really helpful two tubs here a bucket and a Bait Box these are helpful for storing your baits in you can get away with little plastic bags and stuff but it's not quite as uh easy and you can't really mix up ground bait in a plastic bag we got some sweet corn here by the way which is sometimes a really good bait when you're float fishing I got the Catapult for putting out the maggots when I need to put them a little bit further than I can throw and in this tub here there are some other bits and pieces basically just spares cuz sometimes you get in Tangles sometimes you snap your line things happen and it's worth bring in some spare split

16:24 shot in case you need them couple of spare floats as well just in case some scissors for cutting the line and those hook links that I showed you earlier uh you can never really have enough of them I've also got a discer sometimes fish will swallow the hook and a discor will really help got a bank stick uh in front of me which is quite handy when I'm casting out and then I want to just put the rod on that grab the Catapult I wouldn't say the bank stick is absolutely essential like it is when you're feeder fishing but it can come in handy if you want to be able to sort of take your hands off the rod put bait out and uh have the rod there close to hand that's pretty much it but the last thing that I will mention is I have got an unhooking mat with me that

17:10 is sometimes the rules on some Fisheries you got to have an unhooking mat today I've been Landing the fish and just having it between my legs so the fish isn't touching the ground if I drop it it just falls into the net but you never know when the float's going to go under and it's going to be a catfish or a fish 15b carp that you just can't really deal with uh in the landing net in front of you and you need to put it down on the mat to get the hook out and stuff so that's worth having especially if you're fishing some somewhere that either you need to use it for the rules or somewhere that has some decent size fish in it just in case anyway that is the kit I'm going to get fishing again

18:05 today there's a little bit of wind it's not too bad but the float isn't really dragging around too much however sometimes there'll be a ripple on the surface the wind will really be blowing across and Float fishing can get a little bit difficult that's because sometimes you cast out and the float will just drift across in the wind and it won't stay where you're actually feeding and where you're trying to fish there's two ways to combat this first of all you can make your rig deeper Slide the float up away from your hook lay a few split shot on the bottom and that will help keep your float static in one place also sinking the line will also help now the way that you syn the line between you and the float

18:50 is first of all you make your cast when the float hits the surface Put Your Rod tip under the water and reel in really quickly just two three turns is normally enough that will sink the line by a rod but it'll also sink the line by the float you'll often have a little bit of line still left on the surface and you can get that last bit to sink down into the water by suddenly with the rod tip still underwat whipping it up and there you go all of the line between me and the float is now sunk Beneath The Sur surface and what that means is as the wind blows across it's not affecting your line so much and it won't drag your float out of place uh so

19:38 quickly the split shot that I pinched on either side of the float have a couple of uses obviously they hold the float in place but split shot also provide the weight you need to pull your float down obviously you want to have just the red part of the float the tip showing for maximum sensitivity the more float that's showing the harder it is for a fish to pull the float under when you get a bite so as well as the two shot that I pinched on earlier to hold the float in place I then added a few more a little further down the line now this is referred to as a shotting pattern if you go on Google and search shotting patterns it will tell you all sorts of things about where to position the splitshot on the line

20:24 essentially if you want to fish near the bottom maybe it's cold and the fish are just sitting there still on the bottom or there's small fish near the surface and you want to get the bait past them down onto the deck then you want to put your split shot grouped up near the hook cuz that will pull your bait down to the bottom quickly alternatively if you don't want to fish near the bottom you actually want to fish um you know off the bottom or you want to make your bait sink more slowly so that you pick up the fish that feed in the upper layers then you can space these split shot apart uh there's one type of shotting pattern called the shirt button style where just like on a shirt with buttons on it you space the split shot equally

21:11 all the way down between the float and the hook shirt button style tends to be used when you want a fish with a bait that's sinking down you want to intercept fish that are feeding at all depths I like using shirt shirt button style um shoting pattern when on the river uh it just seems to work really well the helps the bait behave quite naturally and I'll also use it when I'm fishing for roach or rud potentially fishing you know up in the water sometimes when you want your bait to sink really really slowly let's say you're fishing for Rod and they're all zooming around just beneath the surface then you'll actually put no split shot down the line all of your weight will be around the float now one benefit of putting all of your float or all of your

21:57 weight sorry around around the float is that it will make it cast better if you put about 70% of your split shot tightly around the float and just a few down the line it will cast a lot more accurately and it will cast a lot further as well if you don't put much split shot around the float and you put most of it down the line it's going to sort of spin in the air and not cast so well my advice would be if you just want to catch anything spread your split shot out quite evenly down the line so your bait sink slowly but if you want to get it to the bottom often where the bigger fish are then put a little bulk of shot down near the hook most of the time when you're float fishing the bites when the fish takes the bait just pull the float straight

22:44 under oh that was a quick bite other times the float will actually lift in the water rather than pulling under this is often the case when a fish takes your bait picks it up off the bottom and actually lifts the split shot up and away from the lake bed the float naturally will sit with just the tip showing but if any of the split shot down near the end of the rig are lifted off the bottom then the float is allowed to come higher in the water so I would strike if your float was to pull under or to lift up if it does one of those two things then

23:30 really a fish must have taken the bait however when there's a little bit of wind sometimes the float can sort of start to drag in the undertoe and that can sometimes make the float sort of gradually drag however if it's erratically moving so quickly nipping side to side or dragging like that that's probably a fish that's taking the bait and swimming off with it there's one other time where you'll see indications that aren't fish taking the bait and that's when you're watching the float and it it will suddenly just sort of knock side to side normally that is where fish are actually coming and bumping into the line bumping into the float or potentially sometimes trying to eat the split shot then that then the float will sort of wobble side to side like that but not really pull away

24:17 properly anything which is a solid erratic movement that keeps going in one direction or another down up left or right that that's worth striking when I say strike uh you don't have to whip the rod really hard you just have to sort of reel lift the rod and tighten up the line uh CU if you wait too long or reeling very slowly the fish will just spit the bait out so a little strike helps set the hook and make sure that you get the fish [Music] that was an example of when the float

25:04 comes up the float lifted when I had a fish on the end that's good we've seen different types of bites now skimmer pretty mad to get five or six bites in a row when we've past hours today without anything when I get back down underneath the tree tree a spot that has produced better fish so far today so I'd really like to round the day up on something something [Music]

25:55 special oh there we go the float's just dipped and this feels decent is another ten I think it might what oh today was not intended to be a tent fishing day but I won't say no to another oh it's a bit bigger this one yeah that's definitely bigger than the last T me had wow he wanted that bait it's like tiny little dip of the float and it had taken it right in and there glistening in the afternoon sun is a beautiful

26:42 tench amazing scrap on a light float [Music] rod there's another species a little gudgin these are often people's first fish they ever catch cuz they're quite obliging and they live in lakes rivers and canals all over the country but hopefully this video has helped you and check out the videos that are on screen now uh if you want to develop your course fishing skills thanks for watching and we see you soon [Music]