Fishing float

A float, also called a bobber in the United States, is an item of angling equipment that is attached to the fishing line which serves several purposes. Firstly, it can suspend the bait at a predetermined depth; secondly, due to its buoyancy, it can carry the baited hook to otherwise inaccessible areas of water by allowing the float to drift in the prevailing current; and thirdly, a float also serves as a visual bite indicator. Fishing with a float is called float fishing.

Floats come in different sizes and shapes, and can be made from various materials, such as balsa wood, cork, plastic, Indian sarcanda reed (Erianthus family), or even bird/porcupine quills. The float is used to enable the angler to cast out a bait away from the shore or boat while maintaining a reference point to where the bait is unlike bottom or leger fishing. The angler will select an appropriate float after taking into account the strength of the current (if any), the wind speed, the size of the bait he or she is using, the depth the angler wishes to present that bait at and the distance the bait is to be cast. Usually, the line between the float and hook will have small weights attached, ensuring that the float sits vertically in the water with only a small brightly coloured tip remaining visible. The rest of the float is usually finished in a dull neutral colour to render it as inconspicuous as possible to the fish. Each float style is designed to be used in certain types of conditions such as slow or fast rivers, windy or still water or small confined waters such as canals.

It is impossible to say with any degree of accuracy who first used a float for indicating that a fish had taken the bait, but it can be said with some certainty that people used pieces of twig, bird feather quills or rolled leaves as bite indicators, many years before any documented evidence. The first known mention of using a float appears in the book "Treatyse of fysshynge wyth an Angle" written by Juliana Berners in 1496.

"All maner lynes that be not for the grounde must haue flotes, and the rennyng ground lyne must haue a flote, the lyeng ground lyne must haue a flote."

The method described, involved boring a hole through a cork so the line could be passed though and trapped with a quill. Later books such as "the Art of Angling"by Gerald Eades Bentley in 1577 and the classic work "The Compleat Angler" first published in 1653, written by Isaak Walton gave greater detail on fishing and using floats.

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