Keep downsizing your hook size until subtle bites hook up

I was float fishing tonight in classic English style for the miserable carp in Edwards Park Lake which is just five minutes up the road. I was using a 3 No 4 float and a ground bait of bread crumbs and corn and picking up fish constantly on my corn bait. What surprised me was the takes of these fish. They were so subtle. The float hardly moved, or moved a touch downward and then a little sidewards. I am pretty sure the fish were holding the bait in their mouth without really moving. This is what I really love about float fishing, if your set up if finely balanced, you can see the tiniest of bites.

Usually when this happens I tend to delay my strike. I wait until the float disappears from view for a solid ten seconds before I give the rod a tug hoping to strike up a fish. Today I was striking quite early on and my size 16 hooks were embedding themselves most times. Size 16 would be regarded as very small for a 2 kg fish in Australia but in the UK it's a fairly average size. My good hook up rates on fish that were only mouthing the bait meant the hook size was spot on. If I had used a bigger hook I would have missed fish. The lesson in this is you should keep down sizing your hooks until you hook up fish from small strikes.

I will be applying this lesson during summer on a number of number of non-coarse fishing species such as brim and whiting, it should be interesting.