Grayling bobbers - how to use them

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MaggotDrowner
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Grayling bobbers - how to use them

Post by MaggotDrowner »

I don't really understand the advantage of a grayling bobber over an avon float. I get the perch bobber. The extra buoyancy is needed for live baits but I don't understand using one for perch with say a worm or fishing for grayling with bobbers.
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Stathamender
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Re: Grayling bobbers - how to use them

Post by Stathamender »

You have touched here on the essential raison d'etre of many traditional practices. There is no reason, one does this because this is the way it is done and always has been done. The reason is sufficient in itself and the practice thus requires no further justification in other terms e.g. practicality or utility.
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MaggotDrowner
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Re: Grayling bobbers - how to use them

Post by MaggotDrowner »

Surely they were designed as they are for a reason?
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Santiago
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Re: Grayling bobbers - how to use them

Post by Santiago »

Possibly they were the float of choice before avons became popular but they offer no real advantage. With the type of water in mind, boils and swirls etc. and paceyness, size of floats of these types is more important. And other options loke chubbers are also very effective if not even better depending on the water!
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Wallys-Cast
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Re: Grayling bobbers - how to use them

Post by Wallys-Cast »

I have often wondered this myself and thought the extra buoyancy was to create a kind of shock rig and cause the fish to hook itself against the float before swallowing the bait too deeply. Both Grayling and Perch are notorious for deep hooking.

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MGs
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Re: Grayling bobbers - how to use them

Post by MGs »

Buoyancy is the main advantage. However, you have to be careful with the design. I have made a few and although they all fished ok, some of the ones with less steeply angled tops, retrieved badly, making a lot of splash.
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MaggotDrowner
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Re: Grayling bobbers - how to use them

Post by MaggotDrowner »

Interesting theory, Wal. I've deep hooked perch before but not grayling.
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Re: Grayling bobbers - how to use them

Post by Dave Burr »

I agree that it must stem from the extra buoyancy you need in a swirling current. Despite the wide body of a bobber its amazing how many fish will pull them under with ease. If you fish a live bait on a bobber for perch you will see it pulled under by the smallest minnow or bleak, so a biting grayling in a fast current will give you a positive bite but far less false bites.

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Phil Arnott
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Re: Grayling bobbers - how to use them

Post by Phil Arnott »

As Dave says they are particularly good in swirly swims because of their extra bouyancy. I make some for fishing very fast, shallow, turbulent runs with bait for trout. They take about one swan shot. The shot is placed anywhere from a foot above the hook to just below the float in very shallow swims. They are the only type of float that will work in these situations; conventional floats just get dragged under. I make mine with a very short stem below the float as I may be fishing in a few inches of water.


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Re: Grayling bobbers - how to use them

Post by Nobby »

I too think they were something of a small perch bobber, something of a bolt rig and also that their extra buoyancy resists going under easily and perhaps helps to tell a nibble from a real, committed bite.

Both perch or grayling bobber are pretty close to a small avon float really and those made by one maker as an avon might be identical to those made by another maker, but sold as a bobber. The main difference, but not always so, is that the ellipse of the bobbers create more body towards the top of the float, whereas the avon tends to be more of an an equal elipse both above and below the centrepoint of the body.

If you look at the way the Reg Righyni grayling floats are made he seemed more intent on a long, parallel bodied float that would sit high in the water and he is recorded as having hooked a grayling at a full 100 yards!


Not many people, myself included, make his floats just how he made them, but like him, I like to have a tip that is visible at some distance and so I go for a tip of denser wood than balsa allowing me to make it thicker, but the real key to his floats and how they fish seems to be the use of heavy piano wire for the stem which makes them just self-cocking with enough weight to cause the tip to lift out of the water when unweighted with shot.

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