Simple Match Fishing Forum

now this was a interesting design Ivan came up with on the welland the ZOOMER

every float had been designed for a purpose



the ducker

joff i'v still got all my dads cups ,we had them on show in are living room till i was about 14 and i had to clean them 3 times a year and it took about 4 day to do it

Sounds like very hard work Chris!

I had some floats that were badged Ivan Marks. I probably still have a few somewhere as I probably stopped using them when I couldn't replace them, I'm sure that the zoomer was one of them.

Excellent Joff
As I have said before it was Johnny Rolfe who took the swinger to the Trent which was later modified to the waggler ! , In my opinion Kingfisher was the main man on this method, infact he had it all to himself on the upper Trent, before others cottoned on and started to use these floats, as before it was all stick float and even then most could not compete with him as he could feed the float line too well !
Billy Lane was defo the man behind the Ducker !
Come on Kingfisher tell us some stories this is right up your street !!!!!

I still have some John Rolfe 'Swingers'.

Kingfisher will remember the days at Trent Lock when it was Stick v 'waggler'.

Some days stick was best, some days waggler; the key to it those days was the depth and wind direction. It was all caster and gb but I am sure Kingfisher will add a bit to this. My memory starts to go on a couple of pints nowadays and I can't count very well anyhows

Well choppie thats brings bag alot of stories when i used to fish the wagler with groundbait and castor used to have that river line to my self .One match that comes to mind is when i won the Trent champs owe what a match that used to be i was drawn at Hazelford opp the wood started on the stick had a few but had been feeding a wagler line a could juck out with g/b and castor when the roach come on the line it was a fish a cast .These waglers used to work every were with the g/b and castor and won me matches all over the country ,but on the trent they ruled the roost i fished next to IVAN on a saturday match on the mid trent and we both fished the same method both had heigh doubles of roach . The floats we used were nearly the same we had a good ten years or so at this method then the mag came in and it lost a bit of the edge but you could still catch . On the uper trent this method worked for alot longer Ivan used the same method and floats to catch good weights from Evasham .but that donot last for long has the chub back of the g/b . These floats were bril in there time still have some now but they neen so new paint on them THOSE WERE THE DAYS FOR WAG DO YOU REMEMBER CHOPPIE??????

Certainly do, definately the best times as a young lad practicing the method, relentessly throwing groundbait, trying to get the distance, only for the maggot revolution to come !!!!!

i'd second thaT choppie

Anyone remember the Billy Lane "Zoomers" ? You would still see some of the old boys using them at Coombe Abbey until very recently.When we were kids we use to watch some of the local cracks using them at Coombe,they seemed to be able to cast them miles.Some were about 18 inches long !!!!

Never forget Billy Lane himself fishing them in a WL on a slow, deep bit of the Derwent (Ranesway) years ago. I drew next to Ken Giles; Kingfisher might have fished it as well.
Anyway, very few fish were caught, in fact virtually everyone blanked.
Billy was fishing has giant zommers right across and his float was diving under every other bung.
In a way it was a complete masterclass in how to shot a float. He only caught minnows but it was a brilliant effort to get thye bites to register, I think half the field was behind him watching in amazement.
Minnows didn't didn't count in this match but really he deserved to win it.
That was one unbelievable lesson

BILL I PROB DID FISH SAME MATCH BUT THAT PART OF THE DERWENT VERY DEEP AND SLOW HELD SOME VERY BIG RED FINS IF YOU LUCKEY TO CATCH ONE VERY HARD STRETCH TO CATCH ON . ON THE SUBJECT OF BILLY LANE I FISHED THE BIG TETLEY MATCH ON THE WELLAND ( YOU VERY LOOKY TO GET TICKET IN THEM DAYS ) I WAS ONLY IN MY TEENS WENT WITH MY DAD HE LOVED THE WELLAND ,NENE .AND WITHAM AND WOULD FISH ALL THE BIG MATCHES ON THEM .ANY WAY BILLY WAS INMY SECTION ABOUT 15 PEGS AWAY HE HAD A BIG CROWD ROUND HIM AND HE FISHED A BIG ZOOMER TYPE OF FLOAT HE WAS CATCHING GOOD ROACH AND SKIMMERS WAY ACROSS THE RIVER HE HAD ABOUT A STONE IF I REMEMBER RIGHT VERY GOOD TO WATCH I ONLY HAD ABOUT 6 POUND OF BITS AND PEICES . :( :( :( :(

do you remember was it edger Parnell one of the boys that loved the witham he made some good floats i still have the odd one that the peacock beetle hasn't eat yet

Bill do you remember the Stafford paste float that they used to use on the Milford stretch again i was in my teens when a man called i think it was Arther plimmer used it to great effect with the paste the were like a zoomer but very fine tip to show up lift bites .He fished with a pole with a little like egg cup fitted to it in which he put is paste mix which was mixed with cooto wool to make it hold on the hook ,and he used to drag is hook through it to big up small pieces of paste the roach he used to catch were very small and i mean small it was the time before micro mesh nets were out and when he lifted his net out it was like a christmas tree has they tryed to get out .Bt the float was truly amazing how it worked all his bites were lifts just like up perscope .

JOFF IT WAS I FISHED WITH HIM ON THE WITHHAM WHEN WE WERE PRACTICING FOR NATIONAL WHEN I FISHED FOR BIRMINGHAM SOME OF THE FLOATS WERE THAT LONG YOU HAD TO BUT THEM IN YOUR ROD HOLDER BUT BOY BID THEY BEAT THE TOW A MUST ON THE WITHAM IN THEM DAYS .

Mate this brings back some good times think will have to get the rods out again or is it poles now

Kingfisher,
Yes I used to remember Arthur Plimmer; he lived not too far from me; he passed away at quite a young age. Exactly as you said he used he used these antennae type floats that 'rattled' on every fish.
He used to fish really shallow and catch all his fish in the first 90 minutes, a lot of matches were 3 hours in those days.
He is long gone now but he was recognized as the best (by quite a way) of the original Stafford paste men. He would catch small 40 to the pound roach but 3 lb always got you in the money then, if not win.
A few of the guys that fished in that school, Bert Emery, Albert Baker, Ivan Horsnall. Bert was good but he knew he couldn't beat Albert so he fished paste on the deck with a simlar float but set it actually under the surface. Every time it popped up it was roach, Bert's were always bigger fish but not quite so many.

Albert, I think, did use a pole but not how they are used today. If I remember right he used a longer line and his main line used to run inside his pole? His pole had a proper butt on it and he used to stick his paste in a tiny tin.

He used to buy this 'fine white' from the local tackle shops for his groundbait. It took me a few years to work out what it was but it was finely ground sausage rusk, it is still available now
I can always remember him saying to me that he never, ever touched his paste with his hands.

If you remember those names Albert Baker is still around and up till eighteen months back was still fishing; he was the one with the big booming voice. Happy days, even I was young then

but it was finely ground sausage rusk, it is still available now

Aye Bill - still got a small bit left over from last winter when Tricast62 gave me a bag