Pike Floats working out expensive for you too….? Well a few months ago i thought to myself about following others and making my own pike floats for deadbait fishing and also for bob floats for when livebaiting.
First up were deadbait floats, and i even impressed myself! I purchased a few strips of balsa doweling 3/4″ from the local art and craft shop. I think 3 strips were £1.80. Enough to make six floats as each was 12″ long. I cut them all in half and with some fine sandpaper began to round off the ends. This took little more than 5 minutes per float. After half an hour they were all ready for painting. I drilled a tiny hole in each and inserted a size 8 swivel ( next time i will try 10′s ) Then after supergluing them tight I painted the entire float with white exterior glass that we had lying about in the garage and left them to dry for the night. The next morning i masking taped them at the approxiamate half way point of the float, and proceeded to painted orange tops to them with some day-glo acrylic paint i found for £1.50 for a tube. I barely used any in painting them all. Another day went by to let them set and i coated them from head to toe in exterior gloss varnish £4.99 a pot ( plenty to easily do atleast a 100 floats ).
I was astonished at just how easy the whole process was. And cost savings that are unbelievable! A normal pike deadbait float retails at around £2.
My costs were :
- Piece of balsa required for float 30p
- Swivel 10p
- Paint 5p worth of dayglo orange (estimated – probably even less)
- Exterior Vanish 5p (estimated on amount used)
Total cost – 50p
I think you will agree that it is more than worthwhile to try it yourself! Let me know how you get on and i will try to post pictures soon!
Next week i’m going to try making my own pike bob float, for paternoster and roving livebait rigs!!!
Tags: balsa dowel, bob, dead bait, deadbait, float, livebait, make your own pike float, paint, paternoster, pike, pike float, swivel, varnish
March 19th, 2010 at 12:16 am
Great idea!, ive seen the big white sea fishing floats used and these seem to be very similar (polystyrene instead of balsa) but a great way to save money, especially since you can have different colour tops to suit. Have you thought about making your own plugs? im considering it, just need some more ideas!