Stillwater Blues

Peter Drennan

At dawn when the mist is rising from the water and the whole surface of the lake is flat calm conditions are just perfect for
fishing stillwater blues with their long fine antenna.

Stillwater Blues are a classic float pattern which has

been around for more than
30 years. They have a long
streamlined Balsa body

which casts with accuracy

and lands with delicacy rather than splash. The ultra fine
cane antenna is perfect for
registering tiny indications

from shy biting fish and in

the larger sizes the float has
enough length and stability
to behave itself even in light
cross winds.

In the main the thinner the

antenna the better the bite
indication will be, but there
are two other factors which
influence bite registration.
The first one is the weight
of the antenna material and
the amount of buoyancy left
in the portion sitting above
the surface. If the material is
dense and heavy with little
or no residual buoyancy left
in the tip, you will tend to get
big, slow, exaggerated bites.
Its why wire tipped pole
floats are so sensitive; there
is no buoyancy at all in a
wire pole float antenna, just
dead weight. As a result they
are extremely difficult to shot
accurately, can only be fished
in the calmest conditions and
they have to be greased to
hold their position in the surface film. But of course, they
just sink right out of sight in
response to the merest indication, providing long, slow,
practically unmissable bites.

Stillwater Blues: the perfect lake

float

As its name implies, this

is strictly a Stillwater pattern and on small lakes and
ponds it has three principle
uses :

Exactly the opposite applies

with ultra light weight, highly
buoyant material like a fine
Peacock antenna, which
wants to pop back up to the
surface as fast as it can. With
such buoyant antenna you
tend to get quicker, more
staccato dips from shy biting
fish which by comparison are
much more difficult to read,
to time and to strike.

Its ideal for exceptionally

shy biting fish like Crucians or F1s.

Its very useful for Tench

in the margins when they
are fiddling about and
producing a lot of small
indications and false
bites.

Bamboo cane dowel is, sort

of half-way between these
two extremes. Its neither
so dense and heavy that its
difficult to shot and gets
dragged under by the slightest breeze or drift; nor is it so
light and buoyant that you
only get quick little dips of
the float from shy biting fish.
In fact Bamboo is a unique
natural material; lightweight
and moderately buoyant but
incredibly tough and strong.

Its excellent for fishing

a slow sinking bait on
the drop for Roach and
Rudd.

The second factor which

affects bite registration is
the shape of the body underneath the antenna. If the

body is carrot shaped with

the bulk and buoyancy at
the top, the float will be more
stable but marginally less
sensitive. If its the opposite
way up with the thinnest part
jointing into the antenna and
the fatter bulky portion at the
bottom, it will be less stable
and tend to rock about a bit
more. But on the plus side,
it will be marginally more
sensitive and help to provide
better, more prolonged bite
indication. On pole floats
its simply called body up or
body down and the mechanical effects are exactly the
same.
As with all running line
set-ups the reel line has to
match the sensitivity of the
float. It is no good trying to
fish 4lb or 5lb line with a
fine antenna, it just wont
work. On the pole theres no
such problem because you
only have a short length of
line from pole tip to float but
with a rod and reel, heavier
monofilament of 0.15 or 0.16
diameter is just too thick
to allow a fine tipped float
to behave properly. With
Stillwater Blues you want a
fine copolyamide reel line of
0.10 to 0.12 (2lb to 2 lb)
maybe 0.13 (3lb) when using
the larger floats in the family. Even then you can only
go up to 0.13 providing you
are not fishing at too great a
distance, conditions are calm
and the monofilament is nice
and soft and limp.
There is no question that
fishing a slowly sinking
bait is an absolutely deadly
method for Roach, Rudd,
Crucians and small Carp.
Indeed there are numerous
occasions when presenting a bait to these species
on the drop will catch fish
every cast whereas a stationary bait will hardly produce
a bite. Provided you choose
the right tackle set up; (type
of float, fine diameter line,
lightweight hook and the

correct shotting pattern), it

is not a difficult method. Of
course, its an active style
because you are only fishing
effectively for that brief period when the bait is actually
falling through your swim. So
you can find yourself constantly casting and recasting
to induce bites.
Floats with a long slim body
tapering up towards a long
fine parallel antenna are just
perfect. This is principally
because they continue to settle down in the water over the
length of their parallel antenna, giving you every opportunity to read the progress of
the shot and terminal tackle
as it falls through the water.
The best shotting pattern is
to trap the float between a
couple of large shot so that
it sits up straight as soon as
it hits the water at a point
somewhere around the top
of the body/bottom of the
antenna.

takes for the terminal shot to

sink and for the antenna to
settle down in the water from
top of body to its fully sunk
position somewhere on the
fluorescent tip.
The length of the antenna
in question may only be 4
to 6cm (1 to 2) but it
can take between 5 and 10
seconds for the float to settle
over that distance. (I know
this only because for the first
time Ive taken the trouble to
use a stop watch and time it
for the purpose of this article
!) 5 to 10 seconds is actually a long time so its easy
to count it down and equally
easy to spot any interruption
to the settlement sequence,
which means a fish has
taken the bait and held up

Terminal shotting can then

be kept light and fluid with
well spaced No.8s and
No.10s. If these small shot
are evenly spaced you get
an even fall which is, theoretically at least, an almost
perfect parabolic curve. Its
actually very difficult to say
exactly how this terminal
tackle is behaving underwater, as it falls but whatever is
going on, this evenly spaced
shotting seems to be the
pattern that works best and
catches most fish.
Only if you break the flight
of the float and cause everything to land in a straight
line; hook furthest away from
you, then shot and then float,
do you get a properly controlled predictable fall where
you can count down the
settlement of the antenna.
Again this is not as difficult
as it sounds; you can rely on
a sort of clock in your head
that allows you to estimate
pretty accurately the time it

Peters Stillwater Blue set-up

the natural fall of the terminal tackle.

During the sinking process,

whilst the bait is actually
on the drop, the float has
a tendency to move forward,
inching across the surface
and following the shot and
terminal tackle. If you prevent this by using the weight
of the reel line to very gently
hold the float in position, you
create a more pronounced
arc to the fall and you do
seem to get more and better
bites as a result.