I was fishing fall Chinooks recently in a coastal river that was reasonably low and clear. I was standing on a high bank and was able to carefull observe my float and bait rig. I was surprised by what I saw.

On about half of my casts, the bait (cured eggs) landed on the water in a downstream position from the float. The weight brought the bait down, as it should, and the whole rig floated downstream with the bait in a downstream position. That's exactly as it should be, since most salmon are facing upstream and would encounter the bait easily.

However, on about the other half of my casts, the bait landed on the water in an UPSTREAM position from my float. Once again, the weight brought the bait down. But the bait remained upstream of the weight! This created a situation where a fish that is facing upstream would get bonked on the snout by the weight before it encountered the bait. Since the weight was in a downstream position, it was essentially "running interference" for the bait. That's a sure way to spook the fish and ensure the bait is virtually ignored. In other words, depending on how the bait and float landed on the water, only about half of my casts were effective. I tried to correct this by adding more weight but that didn't work. The only way I could avoid this was to ensure that the bait landed downstream of the float. That was somewhat effective on short casts but for longer casts, forget it. I cannot control how the bait lands on the water on longer casts.

I will admit that this also happens when drift fishing. That is, sometimes the bait lands upstream of the weight. But the critical difference is that for drift fishing, the weight lands on the bottom, which allows the bait to catch up to the weight and then pass it in a downstream direction. Thus, the bait ends up being downstream of the weight. But with float fishing, the weight is usually suspended, which doesn't allow the bait to overtake the weight and get "in front" during the drift.

I'm not saying you can't catch fish with the bait upstream of the weight but it's much more effective when the bait is in front and is the first part of your rig that the fish encounters.

Can anyone provide some ideas on how to ensure the bait is always downstream of the weight when fishing with a float?

I will also post this question on IFish. Thanks.