Crystal clear straight wagglers, because of their bigger diameter, are normally more buoyant than those with inserts. This extra buoyancy allows the angler to drag line and some shot on the bottom of a river, lay more line on in a lake and is also much more visible at distance or in choppy water and poor light conditions.

These crystal clear straight wagglers can be trapped with shot around the float as normal and with these ideally placed either side equally to help reduce tangles. So, whether that is 4 large BB shot or AA etc try and place equal numbers either side. If you put one above and, say, 3 below you can get tangles. Also try not to ‘fix’ the float between these shot and allow the float to move and fold. It only needs a couple of mm gap to do this.

If more shot are required down the line then the shot around the float can be reduced and it is a simple case of changing the size or sizes used for smaller – say No 4 for No 1, No 1 for BB etc. The capacity of these floats really is, as close as possible, 1.5g, 2.0g, etc. Of course, everything is dependent on the actual size, weight and accuracy of the shot used. It also depends on the type of float adaptor you use as some can weigh as much as a No1 shot ! So, you can have your droppers in a string of singles or you can use doubles (as many don’t like to use the harder non-toxic No 6’s etc on fine lines so double up much softer No 8’s). By placing slightly less weight around the float your ‘dropper’ shots could even be bunches making up bulks. And you could deliberately under-shot these float for when you need more float sticking out above the surface to allow you to drag shot on the bottom.

Because the eyes are the same diameter as the loaded versions you can even add a brass weight to make your own loaded version. Bear in mind that when doing that you would need a smaller sized weight to allow for trapping shot. So, for example, a 2.5g weight placed onto a 3.0g float etc.

By having a selection of types, sizes and lengths enables you to ‘mix & match’ float sizes and even weight loadings. This way you can have the desired weight around the float for casting distance with suitable shot down the line for your presentation. You can adjust and modify all of these for a given set of circumstances. And you can change between sizes without having to make radical changes to your shots. Of course, everything is dependant on the actual size, weight and accuracy of the shot used. It also depends on the type of float adaptor you use as some can weigh as much as a No1 shot !

There are two tip colours available; dark orange and yellow. Changing either to black (which, strangely, although VERY useful is by far the least popular colour) is the simplest thing to do.