i fish loaded, i find its easier to move the float up & down the line without having to move shot

I’ve heard lots of people mention the middy popper float

Cheers

I like unloaded you can dot em down then but the draw back is difficult to change the depth

Always fish loaded and found they work well.Buy mine from the bailiff at Clattercote Res.They are well made and last well.Can get splasher versions and straight.They work well in depths from 3 feet upwards

@badger wrote:

@Darlo-toe wrote:

i fish loaded, i find its easier to move the float up & down the line without having to move shot

Any particular make and weight.
Cheers.

drennan in 5gram, 2 float rubbers above & 1 below the float, i find that if its dotted down you could be hit linners, if i leave it as it is i know when its under its fish on 😉

There seems to be an advantage using unloaded floats with shot when fishing 2 foot deep or less. They certainly seem to dive less and therefore spook less. Any standard foam float will work such as a Wilky. An alternative is to use an adaptor like a Mayo or Dinsmore which allows you to use the same style of float but the loading is in the form of a single piece of metal. You can change depth easily if you lock the adaptor with float stops. Shot can also be moved but its a bit more fiddly and is generally fished on a loop system so the shot is on double line thickness. You pays your money and take your chioce, the purists would say shot definately dives less.
On some of the larger lakes the fish seem to sit a bit deeper and the loaded option seems to have a bit less of a disadvantage as generally fish sit at different depths and you need to find them by changing depth more frequently.
In summary if you are likely to catch very shallow, 2 foot or less,shot is probably the way to go, deeper where you may have to fiddle around with significant depth changes adaptors or loaded is probably the way to go.

Agree with John H. The T bar with built in weight attachments are pretty good but still dive deeper than shot. Shot can come off and tangle – there is no ideal solution to be honest, on a technique that may involve casting 300+ times in day things will go wrong.

I don’t think it really matters what float you use, chuck it out, rod tip goes round, fish on. Easy

Not sure why this just came to me but to get the best of both worlds why not use shot like drilled bullets? Simply get a swan shot and close it up around a small pin, remove the pin and thread the shot on the line. Lock with float stops and you have sliding shot so you can adjust easily.

@Tim_D wrote:

I don’t think it really matters what float you use, chuck it out, rod tip goes round, fish on. Easy

Depends where you fish some places you can use 10grm loaded floats with 2 inch of blaze orange bristle stuck out of the water, lash 8mm pellets in and sack up.That approach wont work everywhere Other venues require a little more finesse with smaller straight wagglers dotted right down otherwise you wont catch.

@JohnH wrote:

Not sure why this just came to me but to get the best of both worlds why not use shot like drilled bullets? Simply get a swan shot and close it up around a small pin, remove the pin and thread the shot on the line. Lock with float stops and you have sliding shot so you can adjust easily.

They will come off! I like Drennan Giant insert crystals for fishing over 2ft deep if I can reach distance and see them! For shallower, unloaded styro wag.

Nathan, you could glue the split with araldite and lock the shot with plastic float stops.
Just think it gives the advantage of not diving and allows adjustment of depth.
Not tried it yet as most of my PW fishing is on larger lakes and I too use the plastic loaded crystals from Drennan.

I have recently started using the Dinsmore float attachments & can’t fault them. they make it easy to alter the depth & don’t require any locking shot. The smallest is 1 swan so you may be able to adapt a loaded waggler to be suitable for fitting into the attachment.
Regards Peter.

Its all about the float diving on entry. When the Dinsmore/ Mayo adaptors are used the concensus is the dive is worse than with shot. The problem with shot is depth changes. Dave Brittons excellent write up on this a few years back suggested changing hook lengths which I always thought was a tad tedious. Maybe at such shallow depths the absolute fishing depth is not that critical I dont know. I do know on the pole shallow it certainly is.

What i don’t get the people on here is……

GET OUT THERE AND TRY IT!

All the crap people ask, what’s the best that, and what’s the best this. How do you think people work things out. get out on the bank and experiment!

People ask Tim to get a start rather than inventing the wheel for themselves everytime. Thats whay we have schools and univesities.
If you learn by getting out there and working it out for yourself thats great for you, others need a bit of help to get started.
Some top anglers post on here so clearly they dont know it all yet by a long way otherwise why would they visit the site?
The rest of us have a lot of learning to do.

i post for advice on here because, well, i have to.also i can count on advice from posters on here to be very helpfull(well err mostly).we need new people on here to ask their questions as the site could be in danger of “dying”. 😮 😮 😮

@Tim_D wrote:

What i don’t get the people on here is……

GET OUT THERE AND TRY IT!

All the crap people ask, what’s the best that, and what’s the best this. How do you think people work things out. get out on the bank and experiment!

Whats wrong with asking which is the best product? for example, if several people tell you a product is very good then it generally will be, if they say ist not a good product then it saves people time and money in my opinion. I was going to buy some Daiwa lock and load bushes years ago, people on here saved me wasting my money.