Ever looked at a great fishing spot or even seen fish in the water but not been able to fish because there was weed everywhere…..I have and it’s driven me craaaazy!

All those fish and no way to hook them…..well,  there is…
“Pop ups”!

Yep, “pop ups”….

….a floating bait!
Pop up a bait above the weed and suddenly your chances of hook up skyrocket.

I tried this idea a few years ago in a river in Maffra, in country Victoria. I was visiting family and on their farm was a beautiful slow flowing creek absolutely full of weed….and fish!

I tried lures for a while but just got stuck in the weed every cast. I knew there was no point using bait because it’d just disappear as well…but I could see the fish so I had to try something, right?

I went back to the house and collected some big worms.

Then I needed something to make them sit above the weed, something that floats….so I used a wine cork.

I cut small pieces off and checked if they could hold the weight of the worm. The rig was a simple paternoster set up…sinker on bottom, bait on top…it took a few goes but wasn’t too hard. Once I got this right I found a spot and set up my tackle so the worm sat on top of the weed. After a few attempts and different spots I got it working. The end result was 2 pan size Redfin in a couple of hours.

It actually worked!

This method had been used in the UK for some time but I always thought it sounded too hard….
Well….if you need to go fishing and all you have is a weedy waterway….then it’s worth a try.

To get it right you need to find a spot with slow or still water so it works real well in lakes. If you use it in a river look for the little bays and inlets where the water slows right down…

Fast moving water will tangle the line and bait in the weed.

The idea is to sit your bait above the weed but resting on it. You have to set your sinker up so the distance from sinker to hook is longer than the height of the weed. Then you need enough cork to float the bait off the bottom. Cork seems to work well because it looks just like leaves and twigs already in the water.

The next thing is to make sure your hook is big enough to hold a good size bait….something big and moving is best, like a worm, grub, mudeye etc. ‘cos  lively bait is irresistible to fish.

You can use a stinger hook set up to make it easier to attach the cork. This just means you attach a smaller hook to your bait hook. Then you can stick the cork on the smaller hook and stick your bait on the bigger hook. Something I also tried was using a bit of dental floss to tie the cork on. This worked even better and made the bait look more natural.
The next thing you need is berley. Even though there is weed in the water you want something to bring the fish in. Some UK anglers throw in a lot of berley so it actually pushes down the weed but I think this overdoes the operation.

The best thing to do is throw in some light cloudy berley that adds smell to the flow. Anything heavy will be lost below the weed.

A trick I used just recently was to cover the cork in Berkeley Power bait. I used the red stuff and it added a bit of extra colour and smell to the whole set up. I landed a trout with it

. If you use dough baits like Berkeley it starts to open up options. You can use poly balls (polystyrene) or other stuff that floats instead of cork. You can also try different colours and flavours depending on the fish and water way you target.  I intend to do a bit more fishing with this  to see just how good it works out.

One alternative “floatation device” instead of the cork is to use a syringe to pump a little air into you bait. Like anything new this takes a little practice but it works real well on big worms. Insert the needle just under the skin and pump in a bit of air.  Do this in a couple of spots and your worm will float…but be careful and don’t do this near kids.

Blowing up a worm with a syringe will kill it pretty quick but a nice big worm just sitting above the weed will tempt most fish.

The idea of floating a bait seems a bit strange but it’s worth a shot… especially if you have water near you. With a bit of practice you can get pretty good at this stuff. Best of all you might just find another top fishing spot that only you can fish?