It’s not only a summer tactic it can be effective throughout the seasons, if it’s in your armoury  you’re already a few steps ahead of many other anglers, personally I never leave home without a bucket of floaters now.

Preparing your floaters is the first thing to do either when you arrive at the lake or before leaving home. Fill a bucket half way with your chosen floaters and then add an oil of choice, personally  I like to use a good quality salmon oil, make sure to give them a good coating so they all have a wet shine to them, this will give off a large slick on the waters surface and aid attraction levels to the carp.

Just like any style of fishing location is paramount, whether that be finding them sitting on top of weed beds, cruising In and out of little bays or cruising on the surface out in open water, wherever you find them, whether you see one carp or a whole load of them, there’s always an opportunity to get them competing on the surface.

Once you’ve found some carp that look like they’re up for a feast it’s all about trying to get them taking floaters without spooking them, considering the distance you’ll be fishing this could either be using a catapult or quietly spombing is they’re a bit further out.

Starting with a few spombs/pouch fulls of floaters quietly in the area but not right on top of the fish as this will spook them and you they might disappear and not come back.  I always go by a rule of three, so I’ll start with three pouches or spombs of mixers just off where you can see the fish on the surface, once these have been taken – usually birds taking the first lot, I’ll keep adding 3 more pouches/spombs over the area where I can see them.

Little and often is key to success with floater fishing.  The next step is waiting for fish to get confident feeding on the floaters, like I said, I go by a rule of three with all of it and wait until I get at least 3 carp taking confidently before I make a cast.  I’ve often found a spomb works much better on bigger lakes that are more open, carp are inquisitive and will 9 times out of 10 investigate any commotion on the waters surface and when they realise that it is food and they start feeding they’ll not be bothered by the commotion and more often than not the fish will come up to the noise of the spomb landing on the water.

There are two ways to fish effectively for carp on the surface the first being a controller float and the second being over depth zigs.  The most important thing with fishing a controller float is that you have a strong floating mainline and hook link, this can either be Kinetic Braid mainline or HD Floater mono, both of which are extremely strong and don’t sink through the surface layers. For hook links you want to use the Gardner Zig Link in 10 or 12lb breaking strain depending on the fishing situation.

My favourite setup is having Kinetic Braid through to a cork from a wine bottle and a 3ft to 4ft hook link tied using Kinetic Braid as well, but this is only for short range fishing. If you need to go further I’ll use a flatliner controller to get out the extra distance,  with this you want to be fishing a smaller hook than you would on the bottom, I’ve always opted for a super reliable size 8 Covert Dark Incizor tied with a simple knotless knot hair and either a brown pop up or a fake mixer to ‘match the hatch’.