THE MISSILE WAGGLER
The missile waggler was developed for long-range distance fishing. The pioneer of this method was probably the late Billy Lane, he and his Coventry National angling squad, of the late fifties and early sixties, used these huge floats to great effect on wide rivers with winning national honours.
Since the early day developments of these floats, they have now come to be recognized as potential match winners, on otherwise feeder or legering method waters, and the latest developments have come to the stage of scientific aerodynamics. With these floats, anglers can now cast at amazing distances, reaching fish that perhaps were only possible with a lead weight. The advantages of the missile waggler float is that we can create much better bait presentations than using a straight bomb or feeder.
One venue that comes to mind is Arrow Valley Lake near Redditch, West Midlands, casting to the island with a distance of over 70 yards is the only way to catch those carp, which feed on the surface. Using specially made loaded missile floats and with no shot on the line, catches often exceed 100lbs of carp ranging from 21lb to 10lb.
Another venue that was suited to the missile was the river Erne in Northern Ireland, fishing at long range distance saw me come second with 42lb of hybrids and bream in a large sponsored match.
On my international fishing journeys abroad, the missile waggler is often used, and in countries such as Italy, France, Austria, Russia, Germany, just to mention a few, it is there we have learnt how these aerodynamic floats have been developed to their greatest potential.
The float is aerodynamically shaped to cut down on any wind drag, with a built-in loaded base to assist the flight and keep it in a straight line, when casting just like an arrow. A flight is moulded into the antenna part of the float, and some missile wagglers have been reported to cast well over 100 meters.
The length of a missile waggler float can be as long as 2ft, but the average missile can be 18” and with a weight capacity of 18 grams. This means that you will need a good, strong reel line of about 3 1b, and a shock leader to absorb the initial thrust of the rod of about 5 1b.
To be able to see this float at a long range, the antenna has to be long and visible, Some floats have cane antenna’s and others, to make them highly visible, have a hollow plastic tube, similar to a plastic drinking straw. The coloured tip has to be a multicolour type, ie…blaze top, black middle, white band, this allows sight of the tip taking into account changing light and backgrounds.
The mini missiles float, are similar to the giant version I have mentioned so far, the exception being that they may not have the flight molded onto the antenna. But large enough to cope with a fairly lengthy cast.
Now Available: The Float Manual with 167 pages of content
