Run a sliding float O's, and you won't have to try and cast 8 foot of anything. I run a 3 foot leader with staggered shot, up to a #7 Rosco swivel. Place a bead at the swivel, chunk of 1/4" lead hollow core, another bead, the float, a bead, then a bobber stop. You can adjust your depth on the fly, and it works like a dream. Get that float set up so it's almost neutrally bouyant, and all a fish has to do is breath on it, and it will bury.

As for rods and reels, I'll take the baitcaster any day. You can thumb line, and drop it in a pop can with a little practice. It's easy to set your spool tension, and keep the float tilted upstream, or dead drift it for wary fish, and have an almost drag free drift like a center pin. Baitcasting reels allow me to apply pressure periodically throughout my drift, without having loops of line come off, like they do on a spinning reel. A Shimano Castaic is a great float reel, as it has a thumb applied "flippin" button that engages the reel instantly at hook set without turning the reel handle.

I'll stick with mucilin coated super lines for running floats. With the sliding rig, you won't lose many floats, and worse case scenario, you replace the hook , staggered shot and leader. The superlines work real well in very cold weather, and don't ice up terribly bad and freeze your reel up.

This set up works pretty well around here, and worked darn good in Washington on cohos a few weeks ago. I wonder if the locals from Sedro Wooley ever figured out that I was running a sliding float and clear float stop. They weren't catching too many fish on 2 foot fixed floats in a 8 foot deep hole.


Hey O's, sorry about your ViQueens rump whippin yesterday. At least my Saints didn't roll over on their backs at half time and quit. Peace