Over-depth Zigs or floater fishing?

Jerry Hammond

“I’m a massive fan of fishing for carp when they're in the upper layers, and I’ll immediately change to this method as soon as I see them. I have in the past when the fish are having floaters, fished a Zig just under the surface on the line that the fish are mopping up the Chum and this has worked well, but I do prefer to fish a floater set-up. If the carp are moving up and down over a reasonable distance in my swim I will sometimes put my Zig out to one side and keep firing freebies over the top. I’ll put this rod on an alarm and then I’m free to floater fish with the other rod.

“Although I do prefer to fish floaters on the top, sometimes the conditions make it hard going. I was fishing a lake one time and the wind picked up and that made surface fishing really hard, the fish were still evident on the top or just under the surface. So I reeled in and changed to a Zig. I used a trimmed down pop-up the same colour as Mixer and this was much better. I was now able to sit back and watch, a big boil appeared on the surface and the rod ripped off, fantastic! I even leave my Zigs out all night, and can often be woken at first light to a take.”

Harry Charrington

“Quite simply I would always rather floater fish for them when possible! If I can get them feeding and cast to them then in my opinion there is no better method of catching carp and they can become very easy to trip up. It is a far more active and exciting way of fishing which, if you are a bit of an adrenalin junky like me, you will find far more satisfying than using static Zigs.

“Saying that, over-depth Zigs do have their place when the carp are on the surface and when the fish are at range it can be a viable option whilst spodding Mixers over the top. Often throughout the heat of the day it can be very difficult to get the fish taking floaters and it won’t be until the early evening that you stand a realistic chance of them taking. If this is the case I won’t fish over-depth but I will fish a Zig literally inches under the surface, this has brought me bonus fish on numerous occasions.”

Iain Macmillan

“I must admit I’m not the best floater angler out there; I do love to have a go at times but I’m no Brian Skoyles on the top! I much prefer the over-depth or even slightly subsurface Zig approach, I suppose it’s a lazy way of floater fishing with the Zigs but I’m much more confident of that method. The main problem I have with actually floater fishing is I think I feed too many areas so consequently the fish will take the Mixers randomly rather than in one concentrated patch. This means I seem to be constantly casting at smaller groups of fish rather than concentrating all of my efforts on one spot, hence why this normally results in me almost fly fishing rather than trying to be subtle… which then means I wind myself up like a coiled spring!

“I have made efforts to cut out this problem, so I simply don’t take floaters angling with me (joke), seriously though, it is a part of my angling that I desperately want to improve on, so watch this space. 

"Going back to the Zigs, I certainly think that if there’s a ripple on the water the fish will be more willing to have a go at them. What I don’t want is flat calm as the carp see absolutely everything, so certainly the Zigs mean you aren’t re-casting all of the time as the wind doesn’t drift your Zig about unlike a controller.

“It’s definitely an art all of this floater fishing lark, but due to my past success on the Zigs I’ll normally punt for this method over the floaters, but then again I am a lazy bones at times…”

Alan Blair

“I would always prefer to fish for them with conventional floater tactics, be it free-lining or using some kind of controller float. I love nothing more than the buzz of a set of lips coming out of the water dropping over my hookbait, slowly picking up the line and striking at the exact point when the bait is sucked back, setting the hook and watching the water erupt as the carp is hooked – there is no feeling like it!

“That said, I have played around with over-depth Zigs, especially when I’m fishing at extreme-range and using multiple rods – it’s an equally effective tactic but nowhere near as exciting. The over-depth Zig is also a devastating method during the night when watching a fish taking a bait becomes impossible and I have had countless sessions where I’ve managed to keep the fish slurping floaters right into darkness. It’s important to ensure that the length of line laying on the surface is not too short or not too long, as you will get plenty of aborted takes where the fish have either not enough line to suck the bait in or too much line so they can eject the bait without coming into contact with the lead. It’s always worth getting the depth of your Zig sorted in the daylight and I’ve found the optimum length of line on the surface to be around 15 - 20cm.”