Diego – the man

One angler who is making his mark in France more than any other is the bearded wonder – Diego da Silva. The name might not mean a lot here in Britain but it was Diego da Silva who won the individual title in the European Championships on the Trent last year. He has gone on to be crowned French individual champion on the Seine and is bound to have a presence in the French team's line up for Paris 2001 . Alongside Giles Caudin they represent the new wave of top French anglers and with Jean Pierre Fougeat retiring from World Championship duties this year they look like the basis for the next great French team line–up.

Diego has got a lot in common with Bob Nudd, they both started competition fishing late in life and quickly worked their way to the top. Six years ago Diego qualified for the National 1st Division. In France all anglers have to work their way through a rigorous divisional system – 24 anglers to each division and they fish qualifying matches which consist of 4 separate 3 hour matches in one weekend. Diego won the 1st Division at his first attempt – beating the likes of Desque, Guessard and Fougeat. This proved no fluke as he has won two more 1st Division individual titles since, add to this the fact that he's taken two national team champs with his squad, Draveil, who went on to win the World Club Championships. This man has talent and an ice cool temperament.

He is greatly respected by the very top anglers around the world – Alan Scotthorne being a notable admirer. He is a genuine all-rounder who can adapt quickly to all aspects of fishing and is equally at home with pole, rod and reel. The year 2000 stood out for Diego as he imposed himself on the domestic, european and the world club level using just one method – the lollipop float. What is remarkable is that Diego only started fishing this method in 1999.

No – Lollipop Floats do not let you fish any lighter!

This is a challenging idea. Most anglers reckon that one of the great advantages of lollipop float fishing is that you can fish with a float 30 – 50% lighter than if you were using a normal bodied pole float.

Diego is now convinced that this logic is way off the mark. His thinking is simple. To present a bait correctly in a current it is the bulk shot nearest the hook that is the crucial factor to good presentation. The bulk shot or olivette needs to be just heavy enough to hold the bait in place yet light enough to be displaced by the slightest movement from a fish, rather like a critically balanced feeder just holding bottom.

The shape of float you use above the bulk makes no difference whatsoever on the relationship between the bulk shot and the hook. Diego is clear. If you need a 4 gram bodied float to present a bait properly you will need a 4 gram lollipop float, 8 gram bodied float – 8 gram lollipop float etc.

The shape of the float does however play a vital role in how easy it is to control the line as it goes through the swim, but we will come to this later. The float does not change the weight needed down the line for bait presentation.

Many anglers struggle with the lollipop float simply because they don’t get the float properly balanced for the conditions on the day. This applies to anglers who fish too heavy as well as too light. Sure, lollipop floats exist in sizes up to 50 grams, but you cannot get away with simply using a heavy float and parking it on the bottom simply because you know the bait will stay there. Why should a bream become totally stupid and run off with an extra ounce of lead as well as a bait just because it is being fished beneath a lollipop float?

Rigs for catching large fish on hard days

Diego has put a lot of effort into getting that critical balance between holding the bait in place and sensitivity of the line just right. He has come up with two different approaches. The first one is for large fish on hard days when you know one or two large "lumps" will make a real difference.

The idea is to make sure that the float will hold the bait down in the flow but to nudge it slowly through your swim. Diego sees this as a way to crawl a bait through a swim and try to lay the bait right in front of a reluctant fishes mouth. To do this he literally inches the float downstream – rather as if he were pluming the depth slowly and precisely. The action he uses is to hold the float still for a while then gently lift the float and move it along an inch or so then stop it again.


You need to be very precise in how you handle a pole to do this. You need to have the pole resting along your right thigh (assuming you are right handed) with your left hand in front of you. You control the pole with your left hand. This takes some practise and many anglers make the mistake of not mastering their poles and moving the float six or seven inches at a time which is far too much.

Obviously you have to fish with the bait dragging along the bottom. This will increase your chances of getting snagged up. To try to get round this Diego combines a large bulk shot with a supple, well overdepth long tail. Almost all the shot is carried around the olivette which he puts at between 2.5 and 3 foot from the hook. He uses a hooklength of about a foot. Four inches above the hooklength is the only dropper shot – a No. 4. The long tail will hopefully allow the hook to work its way round and over any snags without getting caught up (see below).



This is a much more active and technical way of fishing a lollipop float than simply shoving the pole in a rest and waiting for a bite. We have said that the whole success of the method depends on having exactly the right size of float for the river conditions on any one day. Diego has a way of checking this. He picks a float which he thinks will do the job and sets it deliberately shallow. He then holds the float still in the flow – using a rest if needs be. He is looking to see what angle the tip makes. If the tip is vertical then everything is fine. His olivette will hold the bait in the flow. If the tip sits at an angle – even of 10^o then the float is too light.

Once he has found the right float he plumbs the depth and sets the line from pole tip to float at between 2 and 3 foot. This short line is vital to getting that inch perfect control needed to move the float through the swim. In this sort of fishing the "action zone" below water is often small – perhaps two feet below the initial groundbait barrage. Diego makes sure that his groundbait binds and will stay in the one place. In UK circumstances you can easily see how the same control in such a tight area could also be worked over chopped worm and caster in a bait dropper, for example. The short line also helps because bites are usually very direct – perhaps because there is less resistance from the float – and you need to strike quickly. Should you miss a bite then the rig is quickly back in the fishing zone.

Rigs for bagging up

This is an even more original approach to lollipop fishing than the one above. Many anglers see the lollipop simply as a way of holding a bait still in a flow. The French regularly fish deeper rivers than is the norm in Britain. The Seine is an average 4 - 4.5 metres deep and the Rhone is often 6 metres deep on the match fished sections. On these deeper rivers they have come up with another original way to use the lollipop float.


It is a sort of half way house between classic pole float fishing and the method described above. What they do is use a medium sized lollipop float and aim to let it run through the swim to catch actively feeding bream and roach. As you are not holding the bait still you will not need such a heavy lollipop as in the previous method. You do need to be sure that the bait will stay down in the flow. Diego has a way of checking that the float is not too light. He sets the float to sit shallow as before and holds it still in the rests. This time the angle the float makes should be around 45^o. If it is any less than this the float is too light for the flow. If the float sits more towards the vertical then the float is too heavy.


Shotting is much more like that of a conventional river rig. An olivette at about 18 inches from the hook then 2 no. 4 and 1 no. 6 shot as droppers. A longer line, 4 – 6 feet is needed so that you can cover more of the swim. Line control is a little odd as well. You let the float go down slowly whilst still holding back fairly hard – you cannot let a lollipop float go down at the same speed as the flow – it simply will not work. If you don’t hold back the lollipop float will lie on its side. If you want to run a float through at the same speed as the current then you must use a conventional river float.

Some final thoughts

To look at it from a distance, lollipop float fishing seems a simple way to hold the bait in the flow and simply wait for a bite. Diego’s approach is much more subtle. There are two key elements.
Getting just the right float for the conditions. The idea of critical balancing – making sure the float is just heavy enough to hold the bait in the flow – requires work. You need to have a range of different lollipop floats and you need to be prepared to change them. In his recent French 1st Division victory, Diego was fishing – and catching – on an 8 gram rig. He felt this was just not heavy enough and stopped fishing to switch the rig to a 10 gram model. He did not worry about taking the time out to change the rig as he easily won the section on the heavier float. How many of us are still content to sit all day fishing the same lollipop float and think that because it seems to be holding it must be working.
On a point of interest, Diego uses mainly Sensas Edmond floats (below) and he does not over complicate their storage. He puts them on long thin winders then stores them in a high drawer in his Rive seat box where they are protected by a simple sheet of foam. He always uses olivettes in preference to bulk shot and likes the Milo and Drennan olivettes for their simplicity of use.

You need to work a lollipop float through the swim. There is no point in sitting with the pole wedged between your legs or on a rest. What a lollipop float lets you do is explore, very precisely, a section of your swim. You need to practise holding the pole still across your thighs, carefully and gently lifting the pole to move the float down by an inch or so at a time. Sounds easy doesn't it, but it takes excellent line control to master as well as a lot of upper body strength.

Whether bagging or scratching, Diego can still produce a winning weight on the lollipop...

Far left: Diego's 1st Division National win.
Left: The net which won him the European Championship on a rock hard Trent.

If you have any questions relating to Diego's Lollipop method e-mail us and we'll try to sort them out below, our first comes from Kevin Wilmot, late of Match Angling Plus and now Editor of Improve Your Coarse Fishing...

Excellent piece from Diego about lollipop fishing. I've a couple each of the new Bogdan floats which have a straight side to the circular body and I'm going out to test them tomorrow prior to the winter league semi-final on the Avon on Saturday.

However, I think a few unanswered questions remain...
1 One thing confused me about the way he finds out which size float to use by seeing how it 'sits' in the water with the float set shallow. What weight olivette does he have on the line below the float while doing this? Is it simply an olivette corresponding to the marking on the float ie a 3gm olivette under a 3gm float?
2 Whenever I've used an olivette under a lollipop, I've always used one of at least 1gm MORE than the weight on the side of the float to make it behave correctly. Does he overshot his lollipops or simply use a bigger float?
3 Diego's assertion that you don't need a lighter lollipop is true when he talks about the weight of the olivette held in the flow. However, surely one of the purposes of the lollipop float's body shape is to allow water to pass by it without pushing part of the body out of the water. It follows that you'll need a lighter flat float to do this effectively than you would a conventional float. Really I think the answer is a compromise ie a flat float big enough not to rise out of the water when held back, but not so small that its weight wont stay put close to the bottom.
Diego probably answered these questions in a round-about way, but to make a very good, technical article into a polefishing classic, I think it could have been a little clearer. Or am I just thick?
Yours in a very-impressed-but-still-just-a-little-confused state,
Kevin
PS: matchangler.com gets better and better.

Kevin, your questions are very valid but you must look at the scenario which surrounds Diego's article and puts 'Lollipop' fishing into perspective.

Questions 1 & 2
Firstly, under CIPS and French Federation rules it is illegal to overshot any float. Therefore when Diego refers to an 8 gram float he will have 8 grams down the line - simple.
What dictates the size of the float on French waters is more to do with the depth and flow as many rivers in the country are between 4-6m deep. Another important factor linked to this is that lollys weren't primarily designed for use on shallow rivers.
One must also realise that here in England we have very few waters similar to those on the Continent and also our natural inclination is to overshot the float or fish lighter than we perhaps need to - the Continentals will simply fish a heavier float.

Question 3
You have a valid point, it is true that a lolly offers less resistant than a conventional float in the flow however you must bear in mind that Diego bases his advice on fishing rivers such as the Seine and Marne which are over 4m in average depth. In deeper water the effect of the body shape on the weight of olivette is much less pronounced.
Diego chooses a lolly over a conventional float not because he can fish lighter but because of its control and sensitivity - thanks to its lack of resistance.

I hope that these points, when taken in conjunction with the article, clarify the position more clearly.

PS Kevin's team, Peterborough, finished second on the Warwickshire Avon Semi Final to hot favourites Shakespeare so we assume his practise with the lollipops was succesful!