Learning how to float fish

Most who fisherie have done there fair share of float fishing it's seems tone one of the most effective ways to target steelhead. It keeps your bait I the strike zone the longest and provides you with the most natural drift you can achieve.
I am mostly unused to bottom bouncing for trout back home and not to say there is not a time or place for that in erie, but. Needless to say my old techniques whipped my butt when I tried them in erie and I became very familiar with being g skunked. These are a few of the things I learned about float fishing hopefully they can be informative and help you guys new to it became familiar. Hopefully some of the veterans reply to this post too and can provide you with priceless info which can save you a lot of trial and error on the learning curve.

Getting started. I use a longer noodle. Rod 10.5 the longer the rod the easier to achieve a good drift. I match it was a size 25 or 30 penn spooled with 6 lb. fluorocarbon p line. I believe fluorocarbon on eries clear running. Tribes a must for spooky fish.i also try to use small hooks sizes 14-18 either diachi or gamakatsu.

Different floats for different situations.: for most moderate to slower drifts I use a trout magnet float fairly cheap and very effective. Usually can get away with two or three small bbs or less and more and your float will not sustain buoyancy.
For slow drifts I use a small size 3/8 Weldon float that's slotted similar to trout magnet float.

For fast and deep drifts: I prefer a clear plastic float made by Sheffield. I
UsuaLly Use the 4 gram model. Floats are labeled in grams to help tell you the proper weight to use to make the float effective. To use this type of float start out with the two plastic tubes which come with the float.usually a bright colored one for the top part and a clear one for the bottom. Feed your line through them the. Tie on a hook. Now you just put the float through the rubber tubes one on top and bottom. If your line in moist you can now slide your float to the desired depth accordingly. In order to get these floats down fast run a shot pattern with biggest split shot under to float to smallest by bait. Tip if your float is not sitting straight up and down your either dragging bottom or your not weighted right.

Now putting it all together most casts start quartering upstream. Then reel enough line up so you can lift your rod up and keep alll of the belly of line of fine water. It's so important because if you don't the current will drag your bait down stream faster than normal and your bait will almost always be out of the strike zone. Towards the end of your drift if you are starting to run out of slack lower your rod tip to give yourself more. When doing these trips while keeping your line of the water try not to keep line so tight it moves your float. If available space also at the end of your drift open the bail up and lost float go down stream get ready when a strike occurs close bail and try to pick up as much line a possible to ensure a good hook set.

Hope this helps guys and remember practice makes perfect. Also anytime the float does anything out of the ordinary could be a fish. When in doubt set the hook!