The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Found a thread the other day on anchored baits but for the life of me can't find it again so mods if you want to relocate this post please do so. The thread was talking about old v modern rigs.

Many years ago, back in the late 60's an elderly angler showed me a way to fish surface crust using a free running Ardsley bomb and a Crystal bubble float. The bomb settles on the bottom while the bubble overcomes any weight and pops to the surface with the bread. As many have pointed out, it's much like the modern zig rig albeit the bait lies on the surface. With a light bomb and a good float, the rig is stable in surface drift conditions and some light flow like on a canal. Worked for him and has worked for me using a modern version of the bubble float

How difficult is it to overcome that angle on the strike?

We used an earlier version of the zig rig at Broadwater Lake in the early 1960s.
A bomb was attached to a link with a large split ring at the other end. The main line was threaded through the ring and a size 2 hook attached. Crust was threaded onto the hook in the normal way and the split ring butted up against the crust for casting. When cast out the crust rose in the water until it hit top and the line was tightened. If ducks showed an interest from a distance it was easy to just pull in a little line until the crust temporarily submerged. My own adaptation was instead of using one piece of flat crust I threaded 4 or 5 smaller squares of crust - this gave a larger area for the fish to spot from below surface and a much smaller target for water birds to see.
Fishing the Rikki Cons water I suffered gulls attacking the crust so put a leaf on the hook so that it was camouflaged when viewed from above.

Its better used without the bubble float, a cube of bread crust has enough buoyancy to rise to the surface. A good way to keep ducks off the bread too, you just wind in a bit and bread vanishes under the surface, duck moves off, release a little line and bread rises back to the surface.

Incidently, I have also caught four grass carp using this method with the bread submerged just about three inches.

Wal.

Sorry Isis, how about that for like minded thinking..

Wal.

I agree. I used to use a similar rig in the 1980s. A small bomb and just a piece of crust. Fished particularly well in shallow water. Just a small shot needed to stop the bomb catching on the hook, which doesn't seem to affect the buoyancy. I suppose these days you could use a leger stop (not an option in those days)

My dad used to fish floating crust with a big shot, perhaps a few BBs or an SSG or something about 3ft from the hook. (I'm not sure about weight, I assume he varied it on bread size and casting distance.) The bread would be big enough to come to the surface and the shot would be held mid water. So the the line between the shot and bread went up through the water vertically and none lay on the surface around the bait.

I don't know how much this would prevent the bread being moved by the wind / flow but he did it so there would be no line on the surface around his bait. He thought, after watching carp swim in a circle around his bait, that the carp swam around a floating bait to try and feel the line before deciding whether or not to eat the bread. I have employed this method a few times when fish have spooked after feeling line on the surface as they go for the bait.

I was only a small child catching little roach when he came up with this method. I'm sure it already existed, because nothing is new in fishing, but he didn't get it from a book. I thought he was a genius back then, watching him get the idea.

Not totally sure about this, but it does seem to work for some so what do I know. Carp feed on surface baits from under the bait where they are surely more likely to catch the line.

My theory is that the carp cannot see the line on the surface or the hook... ive observed Koi taking pellets from the top in a freinds pond and I am convinced that once under the bait they cannot see it as some of the fish frequently missed or nosed the bait to get it into position, ive also seen carp do this on a local pool. My theory is that the carp actually see the line cut through the water when they move the bait and its this movement that causes them to spook.

Whatever way you approach floater fishing its still goin to end in

If you want to anchor surface bread, try using 12lb fluorocarbon, straight to a hook. The fluoro will sink to the bottom of course, after five mins or so, but the bread will lift the flouro "hooklink" from the bottom, if the depth is not so great. You'll find the bread will be anchored nicely, even in choppy conditions, with the bait on the top, most of the line on the bottom, and no ledger to lift or strike through. Get extra distance for casting by using a flake ball. Get a round of bread, remove the crusts and rip into strips. Wind these strips around the hook, pinching here and there to make sure it stays on. The result - a buoyant ball of bread which can be cast surprisingly far, without dunking.

FarliesBirthday wrote:If you want to anchor surface bread, try using 12lb fluorocarbon, straight to a hook. The fluoro will sink to the bottom of course, after five mins or so, but the bread will lift the flouro "hooklink" from the bottom, if the depth is not so great. You'll find the bread will be anchored nicely, even in choppy conditions, with the bait on the top, most of the line on the bottom, and no ledger to lift or strike through. Get extra distance for casting by using a flake ball. Get a round of bread, remove the crusts and rip into strips. Wind these strips around the hook, pinching here and there to make sure it stays on. The result - a buoyant ball of bread which can be cast surprisingly far, without dunking.

Great FB
Floating bread - even better than crust - only discovered last year how to fish floating bread, rather than crust, all thanks to the likes of yourself and others on TFF.
It's great to see how successful something as simple as a chunk of bread on the hook can be in the present times.