Wagtail wrote:I think the Thames style floats were designed for 'swimming the stream' as opposed to trotting downstream.
In other words the cast was made to upstream of your sitting position and the float allowed to 'swim the stream' by raising the rod as it approached you in order to keep in contact with it, and then once level with your position it is lowered again to allow the float downstream. I believe this style of fishing suited the long rods and tiny brass or wooden drum reels of the time. I could be wrong about all of the above, but if so I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will be along to correct me
Before this becomes an 'internet truth' I'm pointing out the highlighted bit again
'The Chub is a very controversial fish. He has a strong army of supporters, but he has an almost equally strong army of detractors. The trouble is that the detractors do not know what they are talking about'. L. Vernon-Bates
Wagtail, that was indeed "Swimming the stream", and Allcocks were honest enough to brand their cheaper Aerialites "Swimming Reels".
(The swish ones with Slater-style latches were called "centre-pins", and very nice a good'un is, too).
These floats were given a bad press at one time, but their critics tend to forget that most anglers only had five or six floats, and so they were required to multi-task.
Shotting one of these down to the beginning of the yellow paint gave you a trotting float you could still see clearly long after you'd run out of line, and which would suspend abig bait withno trouble; but shot it down to the red band, and use the yellow tip as a flag while actually watching the red to show bites, and it was more like a stick-float (except easier to find if your gaze was diverted for a second, thanks to the "flag"). Somewhere on youtube, Chavender has posted a film of Bernard Venables trotting with just such a float - either for roach or chub, I forget.
I have a foggy memory of a diagram of the decreasing amount of resistance to a bite as the float was shotted progressively down, so someone went to a fair bit of trouble working out just how versatile these floats could be. Sadly, none of the journals of the era , so far as I know, did an in-depth article on how to get the most out of your Harcorcks; if they had bothered, the same patterns might still be in production.
"Write drunk, edit sober" - Hemingway.
Hemingway didn't have to worry about accidentally hitting "submit" before he edited.
Thanks for the replies, the markings on them,I had thought were just extra decoration now make more sense.
I will leaving certainly them in my float box to try next time I am on the river.
Since starting this thread, I now have another smaller version of the Thames float to join them courtesy of a "must have" job lot of floats that arrived.
The idea of the multi tasking float is fascinating, to think that at one time a fisherman may only have 5 or 6 floats is really strange to me, when me as a child of the 80's I grew up in an era when there was a float for everything and even I as a teenager had probably 30 or 40.
It makes me wonder how much kit our predecessors actually carried. I think that maybe a topic for another thread perhaps.
There are 2 types of people in this world.... those that "get" fishing .... and those that don't
I think this is the perfect place to discuss it, the simple answer is on average not very much, one rod and reel and a scant handle of bits I would of thought.
We are spoilt nowadays, far more disposable income and a frankly bewildering choice of tackle ( 90 percent of it designed to catch anglers rather than fish) .
