Should you fish with a bobber, float or strike indicator? Here's what anglers should know

When you’re getting ready to cast your fishing line, are you adding a bobber, float or strike indicator?

Bobbers have come a long way from being just a plastic red and white ball sitting a couple feet above from your fishworm. Today, anglers have many choices in keeping their bait at the right height and flowing at the perfect speed in the current.

Josh Feltenberger, assistant manager at FishUSA in Erie County and a steelhead, salmon and trout angler for 25 years, offers advice to those who want to improve the presentation of their flies and bait.

“Every float kind of has its own particular job,” he said about the advancements. “In the fish world, everything is getting better at detecting fish bites."

When talking about bobbers, floats and indicators, the vernacular is about what the anglers like to do and how they learned to fish.

“I think they are all interchangeable myself, it’s just certain terms go with certain sports. If we say a bobber, float or indicator, they all mean the same thing,” Feltenberger said.

“Fly fishermen are going to use the term indicator. Normal every-day-go-out-to-the-pond bluegill fish, bass fish with some worms, a maggot, stuff like that, they are out there to have fun fishermen, they are going to say the term bobber. And, usually, the diehard steelhead guys, are going to call it a float. It’s just more sport-related. We’re all talking the same thing,” Feltenberger said. “It’s not like one term is better than the other.”

Strike indicators

“The word indicator in my book, like when they talk to me they will use indicator, strike indicator, that’s more like a fly fishing term to me," Feltenberger said. "Fly fishermen will use that, they want a strike indicator or an indicator,” he said about ball-shaped designs like the Air-Lock for trout and steelhead.

“If you get that weighted right with a couple of pieces of split shot and your fly is underneath of it, a fish can (merely) ‘breathe’ on that and the (indicator) either slightly goes under or it stops and that’s the cue to set the hook,” he said about them being sensitive.

Floats

When it comes to floats, he said there are various styles anglers can choose based on the speed of the water and the weight of what’s on the end of their line.

For people fishing in deep water, there are slip floats that allow the angler to adjust the depth of the float to allow their bait to go down further. “If you have a fixed bobber, you can only let out so much line before it becomes impossible to cast. It’s not like you can take a 7-foot rod and have 10 foot of lead between your bobber and your bait. That’s where the slip floats are really good at fishing in extremely deep spots,” he said.

Anglers out west in places like Oregon and Washington who say they are going float fishing are using some style of bobber for steelhead, trout or salmon.

For steelhead fishing, floats come in different weights to match the weight of the split shot being used beneath it to help give the fly or bait a natural drift in the creek.

Many floats are painted black or darker colors on the bottom to help camouflage them in clear water.

There are also clear floats designed to be less visible to fish.

“I would use them in ultra gin clear water,” Feltenberger said because the shadows of other floats may spook fish in those conditions.

There are different lengths of floats that are used based on the speed of the current and conditions of the water. On a longer float profile with a longer stem, Feltenberger said it can act the same way a rudder works on a boat.

“The longer floats allow you to cut that seam of that water and float your bait perfectly through that seam that the fish is going to be holding at and hit your bait,” he said.

Anglers learn to “cock a float” to the amount of split shot weight under it.

“You want to set enough weight on it where the float doesn’t get yanked under, but if a fish ‘breathes’ on it, it goes under. I want the lightest detection possible, so I may need to add a piece of split shot on top of my jig to really get that float to cock to the water,” he said about keeping the stem-shaped floats vertical in the water.

Bobbers

“If some guys want a bobber, I would say that they are conventional fishing like for crappie,” he said. “The term float to me really gets used a lot with the steelhead fishermen."

“If someone comes in and says they need a bobber, they are going to want something like a cigar-style one,” he said.

There are some styrofoam designs that have a lead insert or a wooden pick that work for various types of trout and panfish techniques. He said they can be used with fly rods because they are light and easy to cast. “The only downside I see is that because they are slotted, they can fall off the line,” Feltenberger said.

When it comes to making a preference on what to buy, it makes sense for anglers to carry a variety of floats, bobbers and indicators to match the water conditions of the day. Each one can fill a special niche to get that finicky fish to strike.

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Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website's homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors .

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Should you fish with a bobber, float or strike indicator? Here's what anglers should know