How to float fish a river with a Crowquill Avon trotting rig

The crowquill Avon is a very underused float nowadays, but it’s one of the very best for tackling pacey, powerful or deeper rivers where plenty of shot is needed to get the bait down to the feeding fish.

The float itself is quite long and features a large and long balsa body that requires a lot of shot to cock it correctly, and that’s perfect for pushing the bait down through powerful flows.

Because the crowquill Avon is produced from natural quills, it’s often bent, but that needn’t worry you as the float will still perform perfectly well.

Here’s how to set one up…

A Your mainline needs to be quite strong as you are likely to encounter quality fish using this rig. A 4-6lb floating line would be ideal because the floating lines give you better float control and a faster line pick-up on the strike.

B Attach the crowquill Avon float using a couple of float rubbers. Thread the rubbers onto your mainline first and pass the sight tip through the top rubber and the float stem through the bottom rubber.

C Shot the float with a bulk of large split shot around 18ins from the hook. A string on BBs, AAs or even SSGs are perfect, depending upon the size of the float being used.

D Use a single tell-tale shot around 8ins from the hook. This is a positive rig so a fairly large No1 shot will be adequate.

E Use a hook of a size to match your bait.