WELCOME TO FIRST CLASS FISHING


‘First Class Fishing’, a series of classes for beginners and improvers conducted by Dave Cooper, an all-round experienced angler with a string of good fish and good catches to his credit. The classes are aimed at those who have recently discovered the joys of fishing and need guidance on using tackle correctly and wish to improve their basic skills.

Dave will cover a specific topic at a time in this bi-weekly column. The first section will be really basic with subsequent ones building on the skills covered previously. His aim is to explain things as simply and concisely as possible and will assume that the reader knows absolutely nothing about the subject.

FLOAT FISHING

Part Two – Basic Stillwater Waggler Fishing

I’m making some general assumptions here about where and when you are going to fish. Firstly I’m assuming that it is a ‘mixed’ fishery containing your everyday British coarse fish such as roach, rudd, perch, bream, tench, etc, rather than a commercial carp fishery. I’ll deal with carp fisheries as a separate topic in another article because the method for these, though much the same in principle, needs a few amendments to the basic rig.

Secondly I’m assuming for the moment that you are fishing in the warmer months of the year when the fish are most active, rather than the middle of winter when the most experienced of coarse anglers are likely to be struggling for a bite.

In part 1 I covered the basic kit required to go waggler fishing on a stillwater. Now in part 2 I will cover how to set up a waggler rig for general stillwater use and start fishing with it.

Selecting Your Swim
First thing to do on arriving at a fishery is to choose your swim, which is the term used to describe the area in the water where you will be casting your tackle and bait. Ideally you will be seeking water between three and six feet in depth. Fish will be in water both shallower and deeper than this but any shallower than 3 feet means you are likely to spook fish with constant casting and retrieving of the float, any deeper and the float rig itself becomes difficult for the inexperienced angler to handle with any efficiency.

If at all possible choose a swim without any obstructions, like bushes or trees, behind or above where you will be casting from. These will hinder your casting. You are going to be using an overhead cast so make sure you have enough room. Save the tight swims until you are reasonably proficient.

What Is a Waggler Float?
OK, I’ve mentioned the style of float we are going to be using several times now, so I had better tell you what a ‘waggler’ float actually is. Very simply, it’s a float that you attach to your line by the bottom end only. The float just ‘waggles’ about on your line, hence the name.


Wagglers
In a tackle shop you will be faced with an almost endless array of waggler floats in all shapes and sizes, called by almost as many commercial names. But if you look closely you will see that they are all based on only two varying aspects of design and therefore there are only four basic styles.

Firstly, wagglers are either ‘straight’ or ‘bodied’. Straight wagglers are slim stick shapes, the same width all along their length. They are generally made from peacock quills, sarcandas reed or plastic. Bodied wagglers have an additional bulbous body at the base of the float, usually made from balsa, that aids its stability in windy conditions.

Secondly wagglers either have an ‘insert’ tip or they don’t, which means that the painted tip is either the same thickness as the main body of the float or it has a thinner insert. The purpose of a thin insert tip is to make the float more ‘sensitive’ to the bite of a fish as it is easier for a fish to pull under than a standard thick tip. The disadvantage is that it is more difficult to see clearly at any distance.

Therefore, from the two design styles you get the four basic waggler patterns:

  • The standard tip straight waggler
  • The insert tip straight waggler
  • The standard tip bodied waggler
  • The insert tip bodied waggler

Every waggler float you see will be a minor variation on these four basic float designs. For the new fisherman in our scenario I recommend that you use a standard bodied waggler that takes 2AAA or 3AAA of shot. This float will cope more than adequately with all of the conditions you are likely to encounter. It will provide enough weight to cast easily up to five or six rod’s length out, it will ride the surface chop caused by a stiff breeze and it will be easy to see.

On this note, I would recommend that you buy four floats that are all the same apart from their tip colour. Get two with red or orange painted tips and two with black painted tips. The background reflection of the water you are fishing into will dictate the tip colour to be used on the day. If the reflection is the light coloured sky, the black tipped float will be easiest to see clearly, if the background reflection is dark, like tree reflections, a red tipped float will show up better. Having two of each colour gives you a spare if by chance you lose one.

Setting Up Your Waggler Rig
Put your rod together ensuring that the line guides are aligned. Attach your reel to your rod at the top of the handle where it joins the butt ensuring the reel spool lines up with the rod first line guide on the rod. Most rods have reel seats now that automatically set your reel in the correct place. Open the bale-arm of the reel and thread the line through all the line guides.


Waggler with silicon float adapter and locking shot in position
The waggler, we now know, is attached by the bottom end only. At the base of the float there is usually a small eye that you can thread the line through. Alternatively, you can buy silicon float adapters. These are small pieces of tubular silicon rubber that you attach to the line first and then push the float into. The benefit of these is that that you can change floats quickly without breaking down the rest of your rig. Either method is fine, so thread the float onto the line.

Now, we have to add the shot to cock the float. You will need shot in the following sizes and these can usually be purchased in a single multi-size dispenser, although you may have to buy the No.8’s separately.

AAA
BB
No. 1
No. 4
No. 6
No. 8

This is an important rule when waggler fishing. The bulk of the split shot, approximately 90 to 95%, is placed right at the base of the float, with the rest in the smaller shot sizes further down the line. This is how to shot and set up a typical 3AAA waggler rig correctly.

  • Lock the float on the line by adding two AAA shot, one either side of the float eye. Leave a small gap, approx.

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