To rig your slip float first attach a stopper to your mainline. Next thread your mainline through a small bead. Then thread your mainline through the hollow tube of your float and attach a swivel in the usual manner.

For a stopper most anglers use a nail knot tied with brightly colored dacron line. Several manufacturers market nail knot stoppers. These hollow tubes upon which one to six nail knots are tied. To use these you slip your main line through the tube then slip a nail knot from the tube onto your mainline. Now snug the nail knot very tight to your mainline and trim the loose ends. This knot will slip easily on a wetted line and is very visible.

To fish a slip float all you need do is estimate the depth of the water you wish to fish and slip the stop an appropriate distance up your main line. Reel until you have a foot or so of line from the float to your rod tip and make your cast.

Once the float lands, the mainline will slip through the float and bead until the bead makes contact with the stopper. As you retrieve line, the float stop will pass easily through the rod guides. Likewise the stop should present no problem in casting. (If you leave about an inch of line extending from each end of the nail knot it will slide through the guides more easily than if it is trimmed short.)

The first step in steelheading with a float is to adjust for proper depth. Your goal is to place your bait or lure about one foot above the bottom. If your float continually drags under or tips downstream as it drifts through the run you a dragging bottom. Shorten the distance between float and lure until you can make the drift without touching bottom.

Your float should drift at the same speed as the current. When your float is upstream from you it should sit straight up and down in the water. As your float passes in front of you begin free spooling line while gently thumbing the spool to maintain just enough tension to tilt the top of the float slightly back upstream.

Ninety-nine percent of the time steelhead will hold on or very near the bottom. When that is the case you want your gear to be within a few inches or the rocks. On occasion steelies will stack in deep runs and will stratify well above the bottom. It may take some trial and error to find the depth they prefer, but when you do a float will let you put your offering right in front of their noses.

Strikes are signaled in one of two ways. The most obvious strike indicator is the sudden sinking of the float. If you have properly adjusted the distance from your float to the lure, only a fish can cause it to sink. STRIKE!!!

Sometimes a steelhead will pick up the bait and drift downstream with it. This may not cause your float to sink, but it will make it pop up and float unnaturally high. Any time you see the float come up or begin moving upstream or sideways, that’s a fish. STRIKE!!!

Occasionally you will see your float go under and pop back up before your brain tells your hand to strike. No problem. If you miss a strike take note of where your float was when it went under The float tells you exactly where the fish was when it struck. Another cast placed twenty feet upstream and directly in line with the last strike will often get you an instant rematch. The float’s natural presentation will usually not spook a fish. Many times you can get a second strike. This time pay attention!

The float really shows its stuff when working pocket water behind boulders. You can flip the float past your target, then reel in until the float and its payload are swirling merrily in the back eddy. You can let your lure swirl in the back eddy as long as you like. Try that with conventional gear and odds are your tackle will look as though its been in a blender.

Next, you can fish the seams that form on either side of the boulder. First cast to the near-side seam and let your float work down the seam precisely on the line where the fast water and the slower water converge, then do the same with the far-side seam. If there’s a fish in that pocket it will see your offering and it will have ample opportunity to strike.

A major drawback of conventional steelheading techniques is the short time that the lure spends in a fish’s “strike zone”. In a typical situation, the angler casts down and across stream; the current immediately sweeps their offering across the stream, eventually depositing it directly below the angler. Strikes usually come as the lure passes across stream or immediately after the drift stops. Unfortunately, this presentation may move the lure so rapidly steelhead have little time to see the offering. In addition, the jerky presentation of bottom bouncing is completely unnatural. In low clear water bottom bouncing will often spook fish that could have been taken with a small float and light line.