Margins are full of fish for those willing to try them.

While many of our top carp fisheries have found their margins full of ‘lumps’ during the warmer months, it now seems that their lesser cousins are muscling in on their territory 24/7. There are some distinct advantages to those who are now finding that the current systems of pellet waggler or method feeder are becoming less enjoyable than before.

Equipment can be stepped down a little from the heavy gear required for carp, as you are seeking out species of a lesser weight, even so you still need to be mindful of what lurks below! There’s also something fulfilling and impressive when looking at a hard-worked 50-100lb haul of everything, other than carp, compared to just 5 or 10 ‘lumps’, I defy anyone not to feel a complete sense of satisfaction!

Many commercials are now benefitting from all their non-carp species as match, club and pleasure anglers reap the benefits that these fish bring.

Dino Floats from HungaryHowever, this article is chiefly concerned with floats, in particular a specific model from a well-known Hungarian stable…Dino Floats. Real name Denes Lorincz, Dino is an accomplished Hungarian international who has been making floats for more than 20 years, during which time he’s built up a reputation for quality and style across Europe. His distributor in the UK, Attila Adams (www.thebestfloats.co.uk), has several well known and established local match aces dotted around the country… so we grabbed one of them, Ian ‘Dicko’ Dixon, to test out Dino’s latest model, the Steel.

Is it really made of steel?
The Steel is an inline model, ostensibly designed for carp on snake lakes, but it’s also brilliant for fishing margin lines, as its robust construction lends itself to heavy work. Made from extremely hard foam with a plastic tube running parallel along the carbon stem which is glued into a 25mm x 2mm hollow tip and is reputed to be as strong as ‘steel’, although we can assume that this title is only given in the loosest terminology!

I decided to put the float under two scenarios. First we’d test within a carp/F1/silvers environment, then secondly a more appropriate 99.9% pure silverfish habitat.

Our chosen carp venue was the well-known Willow Park in Surrey, run by the Orford family comprising of Ed, Bob and Sarah. WP has a long history as a mixed fishery, but these days tends to err more on the side of carp and F1’s, so it seemed a natural choice to go there for our carp test. Details of Willow Park can be found on their website at www.willowparkfishery.co.uk.

Willow Park
I met up with Dicko in Willow’s excellent café and chewed over breakfast which peg we’d try out, considering the prevailing wind conditions etc. It boiled down to either peg 1 or peg 28, both flyers and both with great inside lines. After all, there was no point in fishing an open peg when we wanted a margin now was there! Peg 28 got the nod for both margin and excellent photographic positions and Dicko set about preparing two lines on his right hand side, one close in and one directly under the cover of over-hanging branches.

It will be a tight squeeze under those branches!
Having ready tied hooks in a box saves time and effort on the bank.He set up two rigs, one with a .3g Steel and the other with a .3g Sedge, another of Dino’s superb margin/carp floats. The Steel was fixed on .17 Preston Power line straight through to a size 14 Gama Power, while the Sedge was on .15 Power line to the same size hook. Plumbing up, he found 2¹/₂ foot nearside and, surprisingly, 3 foot under the branches.

Keep it simple when margin fishing, but regular feeding is the main key!
Bait was simplified to 7mm meat, corn and 4mm fishery pellets, which had been soaked briefly to help them sink better. A small amount of both pellet and meat is introduced into the nearside, about a 50g in total, and half a pot (125g) of pellet and corn is introduced onto the far line and Dicko begins on the short line.

Precise feeding at the beginning sets the standard for the rest of the session.
Small F1's and roach are all that seems to be available in the early stages
It’s a bit of a slow start and after only 90 minutes all we have to show for it is a couple of small F1s and a solitary small carp, plus a handful of roach. It seems roach are becoming a nuisance, even with a 7mm hookbait. The Steel is performing well and sitting straight, once it’s lowered into position just of the reeds. A slight delay in settling, a millisecond, is experienced as the float touches the water due, we believe, to trapped air in the tube that runs through the Steel’s body. I suspect this is a common fault with most inline floats. It’s of little consequence though.

A tip cup is great for introducing small accurate top-ups.Dicko keeps introducing small quantities of meat/pellets, in a tip cup, but it seems to have little effect on the size of fish available… small roach of around 4-8ozs. A decision is made to add more feed in order to try and stimulate a better class of fish, so in goes another 50g pot of meat/pellets and prompts an immediate catch improvement. A tench, another small carp, plus the obligatory roach! Constant use of the tip cup results in a skimmer then a 6-7lb carp, while small fish still pose a nuisance.

A small carp is netted followed by a 2lb tench.
It's time to try his luck under the branches!
An hour passes by and Dicko decides to top up with a quarter pot of pellets, meat and corn then have a look under the branches with his Sedge rig. The float begins to twitch around almost immediately, which Dicko suspects might be nuisance fish, before disappearing. He’s wrong as black Hydro streams out of his Acolyte pole tip. This is not a nuisance fish! After several minutes a 4-5lb mirror is safely netted.
At last, something decent takes the bait! A nice 4-5lb mirror carp.Under the branches again sees the float twitch once more before vanishing and Dicko hooks into a good fish, then the line goes solid. A snag and he breaks! Another try and the same thing happens again. Even though he re-feeds, this is a problem that ultimately proves insurmountable. There’s obviously fish down there, but getting them past that snag, probably a large sunken branch, will see this line ultimately forfeited! Dicko goes back onto the short line once more with the Steel rig.

Another hour passes by and although the short line has been largely unresponsive, constant topping up has resulted in another decent carp. But Dicko’s mind has turned to something else!
A quick turnaround to try something different!
Peg 28 is a spacious wooden platform, as are all Willow’s pegs, and behind Dicko as he’s sitting, i.e. to his left, is a large bush. This has tempted him to place some feed down between the platform and bush for a speculative look, as we near the end of the session. The depth’s about the same as his inside line so no need to set up another Steel rig, but he’ll need to be sharp if he hits anything as there’s little room for navigating any decent carp out of there!

Undeterred he sets about having a look with a tempting piece of meat. Indications confirm the presence of fish, hopefully large ones and its not long before the float buries and Dicko has a fight on his hands! Surprisingly it comes away from the edge quiet easy and it’s not long before a pretty scaled mirror, maybe 4lb, is safely netted.
It was quite easy in the end to play and net this small carp.
A wry smile from Dicko sees him trying his luck once more and as the float buries yet again and Dicko finds himself tackling something a little larger, which requires his full presence at the end of the platform. It’s a struggle but after some nerve tangling moments, he manages to draw the fish out and finally net a feisty common around the 6lb mark.
Dicko's into something a bit bigger this time!
Safely netted, the biggest fish of the session from the snagy-ist place on the peg!
Not a bad afternoons work!Having spent about four and a half hours I needed to prize him away from this newfound margin, in order to get the obligatory catch shot. Eight carp for around 40lb and an assortment of roach, topped by a 2lb tench, all in all around 45lb in total is our reward. Not too bad considering the day was none too warm.

The Steel performed extremely well and gave Dicko confidence in its ability to withstand severe pressure. Our next test would be equally punishing when we visit the fabled Marsh Farm, home of some spectacular crucian and tench fishing and equal to Willow Park’s carp.

Three weeks later both Dicko and myself meet up at Richardson’s lake at Marsh Farm, near Milford station, which is rapidly gaining a great reputation for some superb tench, bream and crucian catches, up to 60lbs plus in some open matches! The tench here average around 3lb, but 4lb’ers are more than common. Bream also have packed on weight since their initial introduction over a decade ago. These average out at 2¹/₂lb, with the odd specimen clocking in at 5lb! Crucians run to 3lb and there’s a good head of roach. It’s a water that can respond to margin fishing very well, given the correct draw. In fact some of the 3 hours evening stints have recorded in excess of 80lbs, mostly down the margins. Not too bad then!

Marsh Farm
We arrived at around midday at the well-stocked onsite tackle store, Apollo Angling, to discuss what peg to set up in. Quite important as there are several pegs on the venue which lend themselves specifically to margin fishing. There’s little point in spending time on anything else, after all we’re using floats for margin fishing!
Marh Farm has some lovelly looking margins.
After some deliberation, I decided that peg 25, which backs onto Johnson’s lake, would prove best for both camera angles and fish… I would not be proved wrong. The day had started at a chilly 13°, with some initial squally showers, but these cleared away quite rapidly as the temperature began to pick up. By the finish of the sessions it would rise to 17°. We where now in the latter stages of June which had been previously experiencing some high temperatures and heavy rainstorms, this had prompted the use of the venues aerators, a sensible precaution against possible fish mortalities.
Unlike many other anglers, Dicko prefers to use very small shot when making up his rigs. He also likes to leave a long group of droppers as well!Soaking your meat generates quite a bit of grease, which is a good attractant as wellIt was an hour later that we were ready to start. Dicko had set up 0.2g and 0.4g Steel rigs, plus a 0.3g Sedge. All rigs were on .13 Powerline, direct to a Milo X size 16. Bait for both hook and feed were 4mm and 6mm meat cubes, nothing else, and they would be soaked in water to help them sink. It’s noticeable that a lot of grease is generated when doing this, which seems to prove an undoubted attractant when topping up, if not a little messy!

A picturesque view for Dicko if nothing else!!!
Two nice areas full of promise.
Peg 25 has a good right hand margin, both close in at 6m and to the pads, some 11m away, we also have two aerators in close proximity, which may help with the oxygen levels. Not much is usually caught to the left and there are few snags to mention of. The .4g rig is plumbed up at the tip of the pads and give a depth of around 4 foot. The nearside is quite shallow, at just 2 foot. Dicko begins by potting in a quarter 250g pot of 4 and 6mm cubes on both 11m and 6m lines, opting to fish long first. He will not be using a tip cup today but will rather rely on bulk top ups as he feels each line develop.
A bream is the first to put in an appearance. The lake is loaded with these fish and they go up to 5lb!
After just 10 minutes there are signs of movement on the float, before it buries and black Hydro streams out of the pole tip, courtesy of a 1¹/₂lb bream, which is slowly guided into the waiting net and we begin what proves to be a fruitful session. Roach, crucians and more bream follow for the next hour, by which time Dicko is ready to try the 6m line, having kept it regularly topped up during this time.
The tench finally show up and yes, Dicko really was quite happy about it!
Again the float shows immediate signs of fish movement, but what fish? It’s another 10 minutes before the float shoots under and Dicko connects with what is an obvious good fish, judging by the amount of Hydro that suddenly appears! After a brief fight, a 3lb tench comes tamely towards the waiting net. Another, around 2lb, follows shortly after, which prompts Dick to top up again before shipping back out to the pads where the float dips instantaneously and he’s hanging on as best as possible. This is no bream or tench, but rather one of the carp that have set up resident in a few areas. The rig comes back and a foul-hooked carp seems to be the obvious culprit.

The MF complex is the jewel in Godalming Angling Society’s crown, but both Richardsons and Harris lakes were created to be a carp-free zone yet somehow these fish have found a back door into Richardsons, in particular! However, these fish are being slowly removed in order to keep the crucian stocks pure as well as maintaining the founding principles of the venue.
Tench are the main weight builders in matches. If you can keep them coming, then you'll be in for a 'red-letter' day!Dicko tops up before returning to the inside line where he spends the next busy three hours adding mainly tench, in between regular top-ups.

We call it a day at around half six and set up the camera for a look at what we’ve bagged, around 70lb of prime tench, crucians and bream. Marsh Farm hasn’t disappointed us. Full details of the Marsh Farm fishery can be found on the Godalming Angling Society's website: http://www.godalminganglingsociety.co.uk/
Not a bad days haul, tench and bream along with crucians and roach! The complex is famed for its crucian fishing, but in Richardsons lake they only go up to just under 3lb! This net averaged out at just over 1lb each.We review afterwards how the Steel floats performed. Both Dicko and myself felt they offered a feeling of stability and strength when they were placed in risky areas. With a range of weights from 0.2g to 0.6g, the Steel gave the angler plenty of options when fishing inside lines. With inline floats there is no risk of pulling out eyes or fraying line on ring eyes, because of the close nature of the line to the floats stem via the plastic tubing. The floats synthetic body foam is quite heavy when pressured between the fingers, which is important for encasing the tip, stem and tube securely. The stem and tip are glued together, so there is no gap to cause any weak spot. All in all a good float for any margin, any tench, and certainly any carp that may take a fancy to the anglers bait. It’s one of the new breed of inline floats currently available to the discerning angler and one from Dino’s stable which will prove a hit with those using it.
The Steel, built to last.