5. Types of indicators. (5 of 21)

There are all kinds of different indicators that you can buy in a tackle shop. And they all have their purposes, different ones for different water types. I carry a ton of them. First and foremost is the extremely popular and infamous thingamabobber, and it's soft plastic filled with air. So it floats really, really well. And to attach this, you merely fold your leader over, slide it through the hole, bring the loop around the other side of the indicator, pull it through, and it's snug.
And as long as your leader is fairly thick, it won't slide up and down the leader. And it's very easy to loosen that up and then move it anyplace in your leader. Similar to the thingamabobber is one called an airlock. And it's a little bit harder plastic, still filled with air. But this one, you just twist off the top, and there's a little rubber grommet inside there.
You put your leader through a slot, and then you screw down on there. Again, it floats all day long, really easy to move on the leader, and doesn't put a kink in your leader. Then there are also hard body types that are solid, either cork or foam or plastic. Here's one that has a little tab in it. And again, you fold your leader over, you pass it through there, and you peg it in place so it doesn't slide on your leader.
Now, these work great and they're easy to move around. But these two things tend to catch on your leader and get tangled. So not my favorite, but they are easy to use, and they do float all day long. Here's one that's very similar to the thingamabobber except this one is solid cork.
So again, it floats all day long, bounces along on the current really nicely. And like the thingamabobber, you double over your leader, but you pass it through the hole there, you pull it around the other side and you snug it tight. Another one called a twist-on. These are small. They're made out of some sort of high floating plastic, hard plastic maybe styrofoam or something like that.
And you just put the leader inside there, and you twist it around, there's a rubber band. And then that holds the leader in place. Then there's a type I don't really like very much. They're really easy to use. They're made out of foam, and they have sticky stuff on the back and you pull them off.
And you fold this over your leader, and then it holds it in place. Now some people like them because they're very sensitive, they're very light and very sensitive. But you can't move them on your leader. And you find them all over the riverbank because they come off and they never disintegrate. So I don't particularly care for this kind of indicator. And then there's yarn indicators, one of my favorites.
The nice thing about yarn indicator is you make them yourself. So you can make a yarn indicator as small or as large as you want. Another advantage is it's biodegradable. It's sheep's wool so that if you lose this on the stream, no big deal. It's biodegradable, just like any animal fur is. So this comes in a kit and it comes with a little tool that has...you cut a piece of tubing and you slide it on there.
You loop your leader through the tube, you slip the tube over the leader loop, and then you just hold that loop open and you take as much or as little yarn as you want. You put it inside the loop. You snug it down and you've got a nice little wool indicator, any size you want.