Winter float

A winter float is a bite indicator for a motionless rig. It's smaller than a summer one and works below the surface of the water, not on it.

How it differs from a summer float

Nobody casts it out, and there's no chop under the ice. So it has neither the long tip nor the stem that a summer float needs for casting distance and stability. What's left is just the body — and how precisely it's weighted.

Why it's sunk

A float that sticks up out of the water freezes to the edge of the hole within minutes of frost; a submerged one doesn't. So it's weighted to sit just below the surface, and a bite shows either as a rise or as a pull-down.

How it's weighted

It's first weighted on a hanging rig, so the float sits just below the surface. Then the depth is measured with a plummet and the float is set to it. The order matters: once the sinker settles on the bottom, the bottom takes part of its weight, and the float rises.

What it shows better than a spring bobber

A cautious lift-bite: the fish raises the bait along with the sinker, a spring bobber barely registers it, but the float rises. So on inactive fish the float often wins out, even though it gives no action at all.

When the weighting is off

Too light, and the float won't sink and freezes into the edge. Too heavy, and it goes deep into the hole and can't be seen at all. It's weighted once, on the hanging rig; at a new hole only the float is moved to the new depth, the weighting is left alone.

What to do with the hole

The skim of ice is lifted off carefully with an ice skimmer, without catching the line: a line frozen into the ice snaps at the very first bite. But dusting the hole with snow, the way it's done for a tip-up, doesn't work here — the float can't be seen through the snow, and the whole point of the rig disappears. The snow is pushed back to the edges, and the hole itself is left open.

What it's made from

From foam, cork or hard plastic — the material here matters less than the size and how well it holds its weighting. The main requirement is different: the body must not soak up water — once wet it gets heavier, and a float set in the morning sinks deeper on its own by midday.

When to use a float, and when a spring bobber

The float belongs in still water and shallow depths, where a faint touch has to register. The spring bobber belongs in current and in deep water, where a float won't hold. And wherever the rig also has to be worked by hand, that's no longer a bottom rig at all, but an ice jig — a different section.