Friday 10 January 2014

Multi Tipped Trotting Float

This is a project I've had bouncing around for some months now and it kept being put back in the box until I had a recent trip out on the river and got frustrated for not completing it earlier.

Let me set the scene, On the river enjoying the trotting for the Grayling and darkness starts to fall, as always we try & etch out the last bit of trotting with several last cast moments until we can no longer see the float or we improvise, we dig through our pockets & see what we can find to attach a starlight to the tip of our floats and we make do, (Thats if we even brought one with us) either a chunky elastic band or some isolation tape we carry around in our pocket always suffices,  every angler who trots a float will have come across those scenarios at some point without doubt, and it generally happens just as the fishing is starting to improve after almost a complete day of slow bites and not many fish.

There is plenty night floats around commercially made for stillwaters but not many for River trotting that suit my personal needs so I always vowed I'd put something into practise and after my recent trip it spurred me to take the concept out the box again.

After a couple of different shapes and sizes tested actually trotting the river I came up with a couple that I was happy with which performed as they should do when swapping over between solid tip and starlight.

The starlight's I've used for these 2 specific floats are smaller than the normal 4.5mm ones which are common in every fisherman's box or bag but I have a couple of normal sized ones also in the testing stages.




Because these are going to be for myself I have pushed the boat out a bit further and made several multi tips for the floats to suit my needs. The float is completely sealed to the water by the means of a small socket located inside the float which houses the tips.

First the Red Tips.





Yellow Tips


                                                            Orange Tips








And finally the Starlight Tips for fishing into the dark


I found I could get 2 lengths from an online supplier, the longer of the two being 5cm long and the shorter one around 2.5cm in length.These I plan to replace with a couple of fishing isotopes I have in my Barbel bag which is buried under a ton of other fishing items in my attic.


When the tips are not in use they are kept in a small Mints box which slips easily inside my pocket or bag.



5 comments:

  1. Very clever George, they look excellent m8. I wonder if you'll still catch grayling whilst trotting after dark ?...it'll certainly be interesting to find out. I've often thought about attaching a starlight and carry on trotting into darkness but have never got round to it.
    When does the season end for the grayling round your neck of the woods George ?

    cheers
    Ian.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The answer is Yes Ian, Something myself & my friend up in Scotland do when we get together on the clyde, He has had quite a few Grayling on the trotted worm in the dark, I've had a couple. I have caught quite a few bigger Grayling in the dark on the fly line so they are like other fish they do continue to feed in the dark.
    I stop fishing for the Grayling just before the close season starts, Its really fish dependant when I start to see them go black I stop but the Grayling season in most of the UK are the same dates as coarse fish dates.

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  3. The problem for me George is that most of the rivers i'm able to fish that have grayling resident in numbers only allow trotting for them during the closed season for game fish and then once the game fish season re-opens the stretch is back to fly only fishing. That doesn't give much opportunity as at this time of year the weather puts a stop to a lot of the fishing with the high waters etc as you'll know.
    Just noticed your last write up and the floats do appear to work perfectly....excellent ! I think maver/map do a bolo float with a plastic cup insert tip holder enabling the sight insert to be removed and replaced with a nightlight. I have a couple (they look like mavers but there's no name on them) in 6 and 8 grm but I found the long insert wasn't firm enough to stay in the cup on the 6 grm float and I would have lost it but for the rubber holding it to the line so glued it in :)...no chance of putting in a nightlight now lol. I do plan on having a little go after dark sometime this year, maybe for barbel as I had some excellent trotting sessions for them last year and had to pack up due to the float no longer being visible.

    cheers
    Ian.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ian I only trot in the winter months for the Grayling from late November through till March with the occasional trip out with the fly rod everything after that is back to the fly rod again and the trotting rods are put back into storage as I dont feel right in trotting for Grayling outside these times as they are spawning, or I get excellent sport on the dry fly with them after they have spawned.

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  4. It really is interesting fly vs float for grayling. I'd never fish for trout with bait, but some how trotting for grayling seems ok to me. Fact is when it's really cold, I mean cold, cold grayling seem to feed really well to a trotted maggot. So inside the game fish season I'd fly fish, outside I'd trott. But like you George gravid fish and I'd stop.

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