Float n Fly Line ?

[Grumpy]

If I understand it correctly, you attach your main line to the 3-way swivel, then attach your leader line to the swivel, and then attach the bobber to the swivel.

[elnutsmalljaws]

8lb Fireline from the reel to the swivel, then I use 6lb Flourocarbon leader in December when I want a faster fall for the fish will still somewhat not get discouraged by a falling bait. I will change to 4 or 6lb Mono in late January or February because the jig will fall at a slower rate and the metabolism of the fish has slowed therefore not apt to hit a faster falling bait. Just my technique.

[Moose1am]

The fall rate of the bait is determined by the density of the fishing line and the surface area of the fishing line exposed to the water.

I have always read and thought that smaller diameter lines sink lower and faster in the water than thicker diameter lines. This is due to the fact that water being a viscous liquid will slow down the larger diameter lines more because there is more surface area on the line in contact with the water.

All other things being equal ie same bait and line length in the water the lines diameter will effect the sink rate of the bait.

Am I wrong on this?

Also What's the difference when you use a slip float vs a fixed float in the way that the baits fall though the water. I would think that a bait on the slip bobber will fall though the bobber and fall almost straight down. It may twirl on the way down and the friction between the line and the inside of the slip bobber will slow the line going though the bobber. A bait on a fixed bobber may swing down in a pendulum fashion and may fall though the water faster. But the line may slow the baits decent with the fixed float seeing that all the line will be in contact with the water the minute the bait, bobber and line hit the water. On the other hand the slip bobbers line has to flow though the bobber before it can go into the water, being pulled down by the bait. The bait on a slip bobber falls straight down below the bobber essentially.

In winter time when the water is very cold and the fish being cold blooded area slowing down as compared to summer time shouldn't the bait be falling VERY SLOWLY or just hanging right in front of the fish's nose for a time being. Fish may not want to expend a lot of energy when the water is only 45 deg in Dec and Jan. Remember water at 39 deg F will be the heaviest and at the very bottom of the deeper parts of the lake. Water at the surface will either be warmer than 40 deg or colder than 38 deg F

Surely there is more than one way to catch suspended small mouth bass in the winter months.

How far below the surface do you want to fish for winter small mouth bass. I was under the impression that in Dec and Jan the smallmouth were be deeper in the water column. How much line can you have under a fixed bobber and still cast the bait out even with a 12 long F&F rod?
Regards,

Moose1am

[redneckshadrap]

Believe it or not you can cast 14-18ft leaders if necessary. I have fished one close to 16ft.

The wind will effect a slip bobber. It will pull the bait up out of the strike zone.

You can also effect the "fall" of the bait in the way you tie your flies.

Billy

[elnutsmalljaws]

As always Moose, you are the most technical fisherman on this board. I don't know about the viscosity of the line and density stuff, but do know when I set my bobber at 10 foot and make my cast the jig reaches the proper depth faster when I use flourocarbon versus mono line. This tells me that it is sinking faster. I count down the fall after the bobber hits the water for if the FNF bobber does not turn straight up when I think it should, I reel down feeling for a fish due to the fish may have eaten it on the fall and stayed at that depth which will make the bobber stay on its side. As far as a slip bobber, I don't think the 1/16 or 1/32 ounce jig is heavy enough to pull the line thru the slip bobber so that the bobber ever reaches the proper depth. Plus, a slip bobber does not turn over on its side when slack is taken up from the jig to the bobber. With the FNF bobber, when the jig has fallen to the proper depth, the bobber will turn straight up. This a VERY important piece of information to have. For you may be on bottom and not even know it, or a fish takes the jig and rises in the water column instead of pulling the bobber under and you will not know it with a standard bottom weighted bobber or slip bobber. The FNF bobber that has the weight centered will turn over on its side when these happen.

[Moose1am]

Let me go back and clarify what I was trying to say about the lines and the sink rates of the lines. I guess I was not clear. Lines of the same material will sink slower when the same type of line is larger in diameter vs smaller in diameter. For example 6 lb test mono will sink faster than 12 lb test mono of the same type. So I was basically talking about mono or polypropylene type fishing lines.


Now when talking about lines of different materials such as Fluorocarbon vs Braid then that's an entirely different story.

Some lines like Braid won't sink very fast and may actually float? Is this right? I don't use braids that much so I have no clue as to how they behave in the water.


Hope this clears up what I was trying to say.

It's hard talking about this stuff using text only. ;)

I would think that Fluorocarbon will sink faster than braided but maybe I am wrong as I am just guessing here. Correct me if this is wrong.

I guess each type of fishing line is going to behave differently.

Mono vs Fluorocarbon may be different also. I have not tested the sink rate using these two types of lines, so I will go with what you have said.

Try a 3/32 oz lead head jig and the small 1" long foam Betts Slip bobbers on 6lb test Stren fishing line Magnaflex. Use a Thrill type bobber stop that consists of some thread tied around a small diam short plastic tube with a nail knot. Add as small 3mm to 4mm bead stop to the setup. I get my bobbers at Wal-mart in Evansville, IN and in Boonville, IN. Both stores carry these Betts foam bobbers. They also carry a slightly larger foam Betts bobber that works with the larger jigs. 1/4oz jig heads can be used with the 2" long Betts Foam bobbers. But I prefer to use the 1/16 oz to 3/16 oz jig head and the smaller Betts Foam slip bobbers myself.

I have used this rig for crappie fishing for the last 4 years and the jig will pull the line down though the slip bobber at the right rate. Now after you use the bobber for a while a grove may get cut into the top of the foam and that can cause the line to hang up. Just put on a new bobber if this happens.

I can detect when a crappie bite the jig on the fall as the float does not sit straight up in the water. With a 3/32 jig head (minnow head with a 1.5" squirmin Squirt Tube on the jig head the float will sink about 3/4 th of the way down into the water. If a fish bites the lure and removes the weight off the bobber the bobber will sometime pop up out of the water and lay over flat on the water's surface. If it can detect the soft bite of a cold water crappie then surely it will be able to detect the bite of a smallmouth bass. Even if the fish does nothing but open it's mouth and #### in the jig the weight will be taken off the light weight small foam bobber and it will ride higher in the water and about 95% of the time it will lay over on it's side.

I have caught over 50 to 60 small crappie using this method up at Patoka lake.

I showed my fishing buddy. PatokaLarry how to detect the bites by watching the bobber and he was amazed at how well it worked.

Ask a guy named Frank Ison or Brian Etheridge from the Louisville, KY area and they will tell you how well this method works for suspended prespawn crappie. They won a few thousand dollars at the Patoka Lake Crappie USA spring tournaments in 2002 and 2003. That's where I first saw the method being used. But I used slip bobbers of other styles many years ago when I was still much younger. I just never used the Thrill type bobber stops before 2002 April 2nd. I have an entire plastic box dedicated to this type of fishing. I prefer to use drop shoot these days but at times I go back to the slip bobbers and my ultralight rods. I use the short 5 ft long slow action light weight graphite rods with 6 lb test line and a ultra light spinning reel.

I have use this slip bobber setup with a 12 ft long BnM jig pole and with a 10ft long Graphite Crappie Wizard Rod and also on a 7.5 ft long Graphite CW rod.

It would be interesting to have some underwater shots of the jigs when they hit the water and start to sink. Picture in your mind the jig falling though the water column and the fish looking at it as it falls down toward them.

I normally fish the this slip bobber setup between 1ft deep and 10 ft deep. 8ft deep seems to be the depth that I use the most as that is where I find a lot of the crappie suspended below the surface.

The main difference could be in the bobbers used. The Betts Bobbers are very light and easy to cast. They are cheap and disposable and I buy about 6 packs of them when I stock up. Each package has about 5 floats in it.

Heck even a 1/16 oz minnow type lead head jig that I get from Walmart will pull 6 lb stren magnaflex line though these slip bobbers. Now 1/32 oz jigs will not be heavy enough to let the jig pull the fishing line though the bobber and the jig may stick right under the bobber and stay there. Also if the line wears a grove though the top of the foam the line can get stuck even with the 3/32 oz jigs

I take my jigs and tie them to some line and then connect that to a Betts slip bobber and then put it in a bucket of water to make sure that the bobbers sink down into the water to the proper depth. I don't like adding spit shots to this setup but I can take a 1/8 oz jig head and cut some of the lead off it to make it weigh less. This way I set up the jig to the right weight so that the bobber is pulled down about 3/4 of the way into the water. Only the top 1/4 of the bobber sticks out of the water and it's easy to see if that goes under the water. The bobbers are so small and light weight that the fish feel hardly any resistance at all when they take the jig.

I have caught several 1.5 lb White Crappie using this method. These big crappie are not easily fooled and this setup will really slay them.

But I can see that a three way would work just as well.

The bobbers I use can also be fixed at any depth with a small plastic plug that fits into the top of the bobber. Even when they are fished in the slip bobber fashion you can easily peg the line and jig at any depth you want. Then using a long rod to cast the rig out would work. So this system is flexible.

One more thing I should add. With the Thrill Type Bobber stops that are brightly colored bead thread you can see the bobber stop slidding along the water's surface and going toward the bobber. If a fish take the bait before the bobber stop hit the bobber you know you have a bit and should set the hook by lifting up on the long rod. It doesn't take much to set the hook into a soft mouthed crappie. If you use sharp hooks on your lead head jigs then this would be true for smallmouth bass as well. I know that I have caught a few (Lots) of largemouth bass while using this slip bobber setup. I caught one 15" long largemouth bass fishing along the bank at Otter Pit two years ago. As long as you set the drag properly on the ultra light and pay the fish without horsing them in you can land some big fish on light weight gear and have a blast doing this. I tie my own bobber stops these days. I orded a tying kit from Bass Pro Shops and it came with a tool used to tie the nail knot and a few small plastic straws that can be cut up to make the plastic tubes. The kit came with a spool of bead thread that was bright Chartruse in color. It's very easy to see the bobber stop on the fishing line if you leave the bobber stop thread ends long and don't cut them too short. The thread is wrapped around the fishing line about 6 times and then I leave about an inch of bead thread on each end of the nail knot. If you cut the thread close to the nail knot it will leave a short stubby section of the bead thread sticking up from the main fishing line and that will often get caught up in the rod guides when you cast. And that is a real pain when that happens. The bobber stop can move and change the depth and the cast can be stopped in mid cast. At time the entire rig will snap off and break when the stops get hung up in the rod guides.

Regards,

Moose1am

[Grumpy]

I think he is trying to say that: every thing else being equal, smaller, thinner line will sink faster than heavier, thicker line.

Grumpy

[roadrunner]

Moose1am

I agree with what you said I have done the same thing with a slip bobber and it will fall on its side when you get a bite that lifts the weight if it does not you need to adjust the bobber on the tube.
If you are having problems with the jig head sticking in the tube go above the jig 12-16 inches and tie a swivel. the bobber will stop at the swivel when you reel it up and will not stick if you use the right size. You can of course use a light line under the swivel than the main line.

I think there are times the slip bobber will work as well as the three way swivel set up however I think on of the problems with the slip bobber is when you have fished the rig in one spot and want to move it a few feet the slip bobber rig will come up out of the zone more than the fixed rig.

[JimDicken]

Also What's the difference when you use a slip float vs a fixed float in the way that the baits fall though the water. I would think that a bait on the slip bobber will fall though the bobber and fall almost straight down. It may twirl on the way down and the friction between the line and the inside of the slip bobber will slow the line going though the bobber. A bait on a fixed bobber may swing down in a pendulum fashion and may fall though the water faster. But the line may slow the baits decent with the fixed float seeing that all the line will be in contact with the water the minute the bait, bobber and line hit the water. On the other hand the slip bobbers line has to flow though the bobber before it can go into the water, being pulled down by the bait. The bait on a slip bobber falls straight down below the bobber essentially.


The main difference is that the jig is not heavy enough to keep the line down. It rides up taking the bait out of the strike zone. This method works based on the old Buck Perry Formula -- Speed of retrieve plus depth control = fish. The jig is not heavy enough to pull the line through the bobber and to STAY in the strike zone.

[hairball]

We started FnF fishing last year at Cumberland and we wound up using Spiderwire for the main line and P Line fluoro for the leader, thanks to Bill Smith at Backwaters in Somerset. He took us to the back room of his store and showed us how the three way swivel plays a role in the whole setup. He demonstrated how just a slight tug on the main line caused the bobber to act as a pivot point, allowing the jig to dance up and down. On a windy day, the wave action will impart all the action you need, but on a calm day all you need to do is gently squeeze your rod on a semi slack line to make that jig dance enticingly.
We fished Cumberland for three days the last week of March this year and had one day where we caught over a dozen. Two were over 5 pounds and another one over 6 pounds. I think we were pretty well informed. That 6 pounder cost me 20 bucks, but it was well worth it.

[DJD]

Man i'm looking forward to that 5-lb smallie myself. I have caught 2 fish over the weekend on the FNF both of which were fun. Both were caught on a fly that Billy tied and gave me. I really enjoy this technique and will try it alot this winter.

[Bonefish]

I think to get the most strikes possilbe, attention to the simplicity of the setup as stated with the proper rod length 10ft, reel with larger line capacity, line (Spiderwire)/leader (P Line Flu), Bob's bobber, fly and even the paste for the fly, is a proven technique that works best. All that is left is learn to throw the fly, know how to work the fly, and slow down the presentation. You may use a slip bobber or a fly rod, but your strikes will be way far less.