Surface fishing

[Peter M]

specifically i would liike to know what you would reccomend for hook lenght matereial and how long i have some flurocarbon and wonder if that would be good as fly fishermen use it for thier leaders. any tips gratfully received. my only experience with fishing off the top is to free line bread for chub or carp so i am a bit of a novice at this style of fishing.

[Puzzled]

I've only ever tried it with 6lb mainline (Sensor) straight through to a size 10 hook with a nice soft chum mixer nicked on and 3 feet back from the business end I had an in-line bubble float controller.

It's very exciting stuff watching hungry carp scoff every freebie mixer and even have a go at the bubble float before sucking in the important one. Then hold on tight while all hell breaks loose! You quickly learn never to leave your rod out of your hands, you simply wouldn't have time to grab it if a carp bites the other end!

I'm sure that if you were after easily spooked fish then you'd want a hooklength that might be a little less conspicuous, but I've caught plenty with this simple set-up.

It's great fun Peter, not for the faint-hearted, and watch out for opportunistic wild fowl. Ducks and swans will just as readily grab a surface bait and it's no fun trying to land one of those babies.

[Tigger]

I've only ever tried it with 6lb mainline (Sensor) straight through to a size 10 hook with a nice soft chum mixer nicked on and 3 feet back from the business end I had an in-line bubble float controller.

 

 

I've used exactly the same set up and caught plenty. I like fishing like that but at night with a battery float....it's even more exciting than in the daylight. I like to use bread rather than buiscuite/mixers.

I forgot to say floating caster really gets them going also and brings everything else on as well as the carp. I've had some great rud and chub using caster after dark also.

Edited May 3, 2010 by Tigger

[weirwulf]

Because of the presence of ducks etc I tend to present floating baits on a sliding zig rig these days so that the bait can be pulled below the surface if neccessary. The other advantages of this method are that flourocarbon hook lengths which will normally sink like a stone can be used and the bait never gets blown away in the wind. I fished this method a week ago along side my mate who used the traditional way of presenting a surface bait and the fish were far more confident with my presentation than his

[Anderoo]

Flourocarbon is more hassle than its woth with floaters (unless using a zig, as WW says) as it sinks, and eventually pulls the bait close to the controller (if you're using one) and leaves a big loop of line under the surface. Drennan double strength or a similar low diameter hooklength material is your best bet.

[Nicholas S]

If you find the fish are being really spooky then I would suggest doing what some fly fishermen doing when fishing a dry fly and tying on a couple of feet of fluorocarbon (using a 3/4 turn waterknot) onto your mono mainline/hooklength. This will sink the last section of the hook length and avoids spooking the fish. It's a good tactic and works a lot better than trying to use flurocarbon straight through but as Anderoo says, eventually you end up with a loop of sunken line. N

[Steve Walker]

Nicholas raises a good point - dry fly anglers tend to degrease the end of the line so that it sinks, because a line sitting in the surface film is more obvious than one sitting under it (because distorting the surface film make the line look thicker) whereas people fishing floaters often want all the line to float.

[weirwulf]

Could be a reason why the Zig worked so well!

[bluezulu]

maver nylon candle float, 1 mtr of 6lb hook length, hair rigged hero (from asda) dog biscuit on a size 10 or 12

[essox_lucius]

i use last 6 inches of line using flutocarbon knot is covered by floating putty