Pole Floats

[Capt Birdseye]

Anyone else on here who has my obsession for pole floats ? , or CFD ( compulsive float disorder) ? The majority of my pole floats are bought from NG floats, and brilliant they may be but I can't resist buying a couple when I visit my local tackle shops, Ive had to add drawers to my seat box to accommodate so many floats. I love tying new rigs
and can't wait to test run them at the first opportunity. All my winders are fitted with labels that hold more information than a train time-table ! Is their a cure ?
But at least its cheaper than my wife's obsession.... shoes

 

[Dusty]

Yep I used to be the same. I now only buy a few different patterns of float to prevent confusion but I still can’t help but keep buying them.
i think I have an irrational fear of running out of something mid-match although I don’t think even Im such a bad angler that so could lose 50 pole floats in one session.

 

[dubdog]

Best to try and keep to the same patterns. Sometimes like a pattern then decide I don't. So have a massive collection of floats.

 

[62tucker]

I was same with repala lures. Couldn’t stop buying them. All shapes. All sizes. Thing is always fished with same 3 or 4

 

[warrington63]

Yep I bought some off MarkW on here, brilliant canal floats,some a few years old. I always seem to buy either a couple of floats or ready made made rigs when i am out, I was in a shop in oxford yesterday and bought 4 preston chianti and 5 drennan choppa, all shotted up on winder by a customer, all I do is put my own hooklength on.
I must carry at least 60 made up rigs in my seat box, but only use 5 when I am fishing, and sometimes it's the same 5.
I must have around 100 waiting to be shotted and put on winders.

 

[Total]

........I must have around 100 waiting to be shotted and put on winders

Only 100?

 

[warrington63]

Only 100?

That's what I have found upto now, I still have stuff in storage at my mates farm in Warrington. I think I have 4 winder trays full of floats in some drawers up there.Anyway us poor northerners cant afford lots of tackle

 

[rudd]

Do you put a date tied on them?
When you select one thats years old and line snaps as you put it on top kit ?

 

[Zerkalo]

I have about 30/40, a set of canal floats and dibbers, that were kindly sent to me for free from a very kindhearted forum member.

 

[Me and my lad]

Wait until you star making them...
Then they take over!

 

[Nicky Dodds]

I love pole floats. I can't even throw them away when they're broken. I have a box full of about 400 damaged ones.

 

[parkes]

Once I made a couple of patterns myself I became obsessive.
I have full on CFD now and am always looking for my next batch to prepare. Mind you, the price of each float is approx one quarter of a shop bought float and the colour/pattern is exactly as I want it.

 

[warrington63]

Do you put a date tied on them?
When you select one thats years old and line snaps as you put it on top kit ?

No, only because I have never had line snap like that, I wound some to tight on a winder, came to use them and the line was kinked where it had gone around the winder, I ended up re making those. I have some on winders that must be about 3 years old and never been used.

 

[Me and my lad]

Anyone else on here who has my obsession for pole floats ? , or CFD ( compulsive float disorder) ? The majority of my pole floats are bought from NG floats, and brilliant they may be but I can't resist buying a couple when I visit my local tackle shops, Ive had to add drawers to my seat box to accommodate so many floats. I love tying new rigs
and can't wait to test run them at the first opportunity. All my winders are fitted with labels that hold more information than a train time-table ! Is their a cure ?
But at least its cheaper than my wife's obsession.... shoes

Sadly I do not think there is a cure for the obsession, only the purchasing. As i have wrote start making them...then the fun begins

 

[Capt Birdseye]

Maybe we can form a self - help group....it goes something like this .. " It all started around 1970...... whilst on a package holiday in Italy I first witnessed the fine art of roach pole fishing ....." over to you .....

 

[johng19]

I love pole floats. I can't even throw them away when they're broken. I have a box full of about 400 damaged ones.

Me too

 

[Simon R]

I found some old winders in a box in the back of the shed the other day
The lead shot (yes lead - they were that old) had turned grey with oxidisation and the hooks had rusted away.

The floats were OK though so I salvaged them and the winders. The latter will be used again - the floats I'm not so sure

The floats all date from the 1980s, the winders probably later, and were bought during holidays to the Italian lakes (Garda, Como etc) since the availability and choice of pole floats locally was abysmal - 3 patterns in 3 different sizes was all it amounted to.

This is about half of them


The brown one, second left, I used almost everywhere back in the day.
The float on the right is a top and bottom slider and I can't imagine where I'd have used that but it was on a winder, complete with stop knot.

Simon

 

[crackatoa]

The new Preston Maggot and F1 pole floats are as good if not better than any others I have seen from a large company.

 

[chefster]

The new Preston Maggot and F1 pole floats are as good if not better than any others I have seen from a large company.

They aren’t as tough as they say though, I’ve ripped side eyes out of a couple , ive never done that on a malman

 

[Dave]

I've got countless floats and about half a dozen rigs