The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Snape wrote:I have never been a trotter so excuse my ignorance but why does it matter whether the bait is ahead or behind the float as surely the fish know nothing of their relative positions so why should it make a difference? Is it just that at the moment of holding back the bait rises tantalisingly?

What you must do at all times is to keep the line behind the float and as straight as possible to the rod tip. This will ensure that it travels downstream in a smooth and natural way.

If you allow the line to snake down the river and get ahead of the float, it will pull the float off line and across the flow. You won’t get too many bites as it offers such an unnatural presentation of the bait. In fact as you state, every so often it is very good idea to stop the line altogether. This will make the bait flutter up in the water, due to the flow, in an enticing manner. This will also help correct the line.

You can, to some extent, counteract the float going off line and across the flow, by matching the float size, to the depth and current. In deeper and/or faster water, a float with more shotting capacity, will stay true for longer and require less mending. Likerwise, stick floats with wire stems will require less mending in faster water. So if you find whilst trotting you are 'mending' the line too often and missing bites as a result, may I suggest using a bigger float to minimise your mending. And one day, I might take my own advice and do this, rather than use my 'favourite' stick for the majority of my trotting; the number of times I have missed bites whilst mending the line is unbelievable, especially when its a bite or two a trot!! Do you chaps reel in after every missed bite, or continue the trot?? Mostly, I continue to the end of the trot, hold back a tad, then reel in!!

Hard day in the wind and low winter sun trotting for grayling on the Dove in Yorkshire. Only one out of season trout and another fish released at distance to show for 3 hours effort. My Trudex took a dunking and didn't run smoothly either following. Good to be out but not much to show. I think we could do with a cold snap to shoal the grayling up.

David

Dave, if you contact(pm) Mark, you can arrange to have your very own fishing diary in the diary section! They're ideal for fishing trip write ups!