Making Reed Fishing Floats (bobbers) with the hand cranked lathe

I am never really sure with any video or project exactly where I am going to end up, scripts and storyboards if I bother to make them, can only do so much in steering but there are always surprises. I think what started me down the track of making my own floats was the disposable way mass produced floats tend to get treated almost like bic pens. It seams I am always finding their snapped plastic stems stuck in the mud or the margins of ponds or lake.  I have devoted a fair amount of my free time to stirring at fluorescent blobs of paint in lakes or ponds, long enough for it to be considered semi religious and with any relic there has to be some kind respect. So I wanted to make a float that if it decided to take up residency in a snag it would return to dust without doing to much damage to the pond on route, but it had to start out looking somewhere between a candle and an incense stick.

Monsoon

Image Above: The Roach King sits out the Monsoon

Sunday

The noise came from the other side of the lake; I could hear the crashing of branches and looked along the shoreline of the island and the muddy creeks that separate it. It sounded as if a fellow angler was having a fight with the shrubbery; fishing rods seldom pass cleanly through undergrowth. When the clank of goose or duck broke through I guessed a loose dog had found some sleeping waterfowl and decided to wake them. A brown back finally scuttled on the edge of a thicket of dogwood, when its legs stop kicking a large male fox emerged backwards onto the muddy shore. It stared at me for a while and then took a few paces unconcerned with my gaze. I played the slow motion game trying to reach for my camera at a speed that would not startle the animal but at least give me a chance of a photo.  The fox paced and then left as I fumbled in the rucksack.

 Wednesday

At the far end of the lake the sky has darkened under a cloud blue enough to remind me of scorched steel.  I have taken one pike, lost another and I am hoping to stoke the interest of a third that has just broken cover as my lure left the water at the end of a long retrieve. To my left the Roach King (nickname) is perched under an umbrella giving me instructions on how to rid his swim of the beast that has already taken a roach he was playing into the bank.  He is fishing a deep channel in the lake with a homemade float over a size 22 spade end hook; some people like to make it a little harder that it ought to be.

I cast again but fat drops of rain are falling, they grow fatter and faster until the lake almost shudders under the onslaught. I drop the rod in the long grass and shelter in the trees.

Zen And The Art Of Angling

Image Above: The Chinese Garden, Liverpool Garden Festival

August has arrived and summer is on the ebb. This morning as I walked the avenue towards the park and the lake the sun had managed to pick out only the attic windows of the houses leaving the pavement below to the shadows of trees in leaf. At the lake with the new homemade rod rests I had finally organised I set up creating a little armchair for myself by the water. It was all a little too relaxing. A fellow angler took the adjoining peg and for a couple of hours we managed to coax some roach and skimmers from the still water. It was hard to leave but the mother of all bike rides awaited, a tour of the parks, the promenade and a visit to the garden festival with at least six children, one brother, a wife and a father. I found myself at another lake by lunchtime in the Chinese garden and my father reminded me that it was strictly no fishing which is such shame to see all that water and seating going to waste.

There is a man in the garden with a gun

Image Above: A little silver thing.
Image Below Right: Filming in the garden.

I dropped my mother in law at the airport at about 5am and then cruised home to collect my tackle and head for the lake. At five thirty I was at my favourite peg with a float poking at the surface tension of a still lake. It was a slow start but eventually a shoal of small bream cruised past and I took half a dozen before they moved off trailing bubbles down the lake. The roach came a little later fat and greedy for breakfast. In the small bay where the lake widens a father and son were dealing with an eel the lad had caught and the excitement drew some spectators from the other anglers who had arrived while I was busy with the roach.

I left a little before nine with the feeling that I had lived almost a whole day and had yet to enjoy breakfast. Turning into the avenue I found a film crew setting up for a day’s shoot with cables and light gantries strung down the pavement only to converge on our neighbours house. I spent most of the morning packaging lures between visits to the bedroom window to keep ahead of the action. They were filming a new drama thriller for channel four about conspiracy theory called ‘Utopia’ and Liverpool was doubling up for London which was probably all down to cost.

I watched the stars (none of whom I could recognise) climb the garden walls with one of them brandished an automatic pistol. At one point they ran a small rail line down our back garden to carry the camera while the cast re-enacted what looked like a scene from the great escape. Two things struck me about the filming, you have to be so thin to work in front of the camera that some of the cast would only be a little heavier than my balsa lures. The other thing was that the crew employ a man whose sole job was to hold the replica gun while it was not being used in filming; a gun minder like a baby minder only with a gun.

In the afternoon I went off in search of welding rods along the dock road, the family came along for quick trip to Crosby beach and some bass scouting.



Image Below: Sculpture at Crosby Beach.

Carving Balsa Lures

Image Above: A Roach Fishing Lure Prototype

After all the recent float fishing for natural prey subjects to turn into lures I have started on my Roach prototype. I began with a drawing taken from a photograph of a fish I caught but once I began carving the balsa the experience of handling real fish took over.  Again it is made in two halves with the wire and weights hidden in the centre.  Still in the early stages but I cannot wait to catch my first pike on this.

Wagglers

Image Above: Roach and home made balsa waggler float.

    By late afternoon the storm had developed into a small monsoon. Sheets of rain blew in over the surface of the lake dropping their load in fat drops that pummelled at the waters. Without a bivy or the modesty of an umbrella I padded through the ring of mud that marks out the island looking for shelter amongst its trees. This turned out to be a false promise as the wind took to liberating the rainfall from the trees at regular enough intervals to ensure I would not miss out on the bounty.

     Despite the weather summer has arrived at the lake; the stretches of water cleared by the winter die back of weed have gradually shrunk under the season’s new growth.  Even bank space is at a premium as anglers have returned from hibernation in public houses or curled up under the warm glow of a T.V.  sets.  There is little open water in which to throw a lure and so I have my excuses to fish with floats and bait. 

    There is almost a welcome rhythm to float fishing, tie on hook, slide a float up to what you think depth may be, add some shot weights to hold it and then hook on a plumb weight and cast. The plumb was given to me by a fellow angler who took pity on my early attempts to catch fish with a float. Unlike the other weights in my box it never ventures out as part of rig but serves as a temporary addition to the hook to find the depth of the water. I pass the hook and line through the eye on top of the plumb weight and then push the point of the hook into a small piece of cork wedged into a slot on the base.

     I cast and wind in stopping every few feet to check the depths, if the float disappears under the weight of the plumb the length between the float and hook is under depth, if the float lies flat on the surface I am over depth. From my plotting’s I work out that the bottom falls away sharply to a pretty constant depth only a short way out. I cast again and bring the float back to my chosen fishing position just beyond the drop off and the float sinks until its top creates the slightest lump in the surface tension; I am just on depth at about five feet. Once retrieved I unhook the plumb weight and move the small shot weights that hold the float in position and the float six inches up the line over depth so the hook will lie on the bottom rather than hang mid water like an apparition.

    I take four of the larger split shot weights from my selection box and pinch them on the line either side of the float and then drop it in the water. The float stands upright with the water covering three quarters of its length, I add another smaller shot half way between the float and the hook and a much finer one six inches from the hook.  When I cast again to deeper water the float settles until only half an inch shows above the surface enough to hold its own in amongst the ripples surface but still show a bite. The float is traditional waggler with a bulb of balsa at its base, the design keeps the float relativity still even when the surface of the lake is bruised by ripples. I am ready to fish.

    I hook on a single sweet corn kernel and cast again following it with a handful of loose kernels thrown around the float. The fish come in short bursts mainly roach of a good size and skimmers (small bream). As afternoon turns to evening the sky darkens prematurely and my rain filled bait box takes on the look of sweet corn chowder. I realise it is time to leave when I begin cradling fish for warmth and wondering whether wading in the lake may be the drier option. 

The Competition

Image Above: Homemade Balsa and Bamboo Skewer Floats

I took a break from testing lures this morning to do a bit of float fishing. My motives were not entirely pure I had an idea to check out the competition; the bait fish that compete with my lures for the pikes attention. I really wanted to catch a roach or a small bream as I hope to make a similar shaped and coloured lure.

On the way to the lake I stopped at the petrol station and bought a small can of sweat corn to use as bait. Without homemade lures for company I would be fishing with homemade floats made from balsa and bamboo skewers. The lake was still and I set up a rig and plumbed the depths so the bait just lay on the bottom. My reactions were a little slow and I failed to strike as the float dipped at least half a dozen times. Quietly the float sank away and this time I hit it on the nail and felt the tug of a fish. It seemed I had hooked something a little larger than I had expected as rod arched and the line ran away. When it broke the surface I was little shocked to see a large freshwater eel wrapping itself around the line and float. It got more than a little slimy and rather than attempt to remove the hook from deep within its jaws I cut the line and tossed the fish back. Eel slime is not dissimilar to snot and by the time I had rigged up again I felt like I had blown my nose without using a tissue.

A little later when my reactions had warmed up I caught a small roach and spent almost too long a time admiring it. The scales were a thing of beauty, each one a little piece of crystal artwork and as I turned the fish over an iridescent sheen washed over them. I thought about my own lures and felt a little like Dr. Frankenstein realising that by comparison to this little fish I was creating monsters.

Image Below: A handful of Roach