Johnny Wilkins has some advice for stocking up on the most effective floats to be ready for float fishing this spring.

If you didn’t catch last season, follow my advice and get your game together now for this spring.

My teacher, Mick Thill, who passed away a couple months ago, was a float-fishing master. He reinvented and promoted floats to more people in the United States and Canada for over 20 years and he made me a disciple of this live-bait fishing.

Matching the exact float to a situation was his passion. This year, you are going to better match floats to the fishing you do (by having sizes ready to fish). Floats are like missiles. You need long, powerful missiles to go across continents and smaller missiles to hit an enemy hiding a couple blocks away. You need different floats to fish further, deeper, heavier baits and swimming baits.

Many who fish think a slip float with a tube down the center is a sensitive way to fish—it is not. If you don’t have a number of smaller floats and medium-sized floats instead of these chubby buoys, you are missing piles of fish. Hard-water season is stock-up-the-tackle-box season. Your mission will be to think about baits you fish and waters you fish and to add smaller, lighter, thinner floats to catch more fish.

Speed fishing

If you don’t already have one, you should purchase a telescopic pole to fish. This is the fastest and most-efficient method to hook and land the most fish on the planet. I actually call it speed fishing when I talk about this setup. I use an 8-foot pole and no reel. This might be my favorite method to fish. If you want a complete setup or the float and line, you can purchase one online. The float I use on the pole is the Pole Fishing Rig on Winder from Live Bait Tackle.

I will break down the spin casting rod and reel floats you want to stock up on by baits. Small grubs, small worms, cut crawlers, spikes and wax worms are nearly non-moving live baits. This is my first set of baits that you would fish using a small float. These are also mostly the baits you would use the speed fishing rig (telescopic pole). For small floats, we also are talking about distance – short distance casting by size and weight. My go-to casting float for short distance grub baits is the 5-inch Pencil Float. (Note: floats do not have wire springs on them and you can’t find them on big box shelves!). These pencil bobbers hold about ten times the amount of split shot vs. the 5-inch Pencil Float from Gapen. The pencil bobber also comes in a 7-inch size, which holds a little more split shot, casts a short bit more and will fish better with a little wind. Add a 5-inch and 7-inch in sets of two (so you have a backup or can create two fishing rigs that are identical in case of snag or tangle). Stock up your tackle box with four of each size and be ready to fish this spring.

Baits to bet on

The next set of baits you will want to fish would be small crappie minnows and slightly larger walleye minnows. Float for fishing this will need to be a little taller so the minnows don’t swim them under. These floats will also cast a little further to medium distance. The 5-inch crappie and 7-inch crappie float, along with the 6-inch balsa Shy Bite by Eagle Claw. All of these floats can be fished slip-float style or fixed-float style and are thinner than other bobbers on the market, have better tips for bite detection and cast really well. I use these for medium casts and minnow fishing. They can also be used with grubs in wind or choppy water.

The last offseason stock up you must do is get some premium leader line that is available during ice season. You want some 1- to 4-pound mono ice line and fluorocarbon for clear-water situations. The best leader line is from Gamma, but other companies make good ice lines.

Learn more of the latest fishing techniques in the February issue of MidWest Outdoors, available now at the newsstand or by subscribing on our website.