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Don Corleone's been popping 'em for years. Deadbaits that is.

Discussion threads on the subject show a lot of people are wondering about pop-ups. But how do you avoid watching your smelt float off into seagull territory, or a rig which ends up deep hooking pike because you don't know when one takes your bait...?

A popped-up bait is one with added buoyancy. The original idea was to keep coarse or sea deadbaits clear of silt and weed, to make it easier for the pike to find and take them. Since then the idea has been refined by a number of people and the tackle manufacturers have not been slow in spotting extra bits of must-have gear they can sell to fill another gap in our armoury.

While they can be used just as easily with float or leger tactics, the key is to ensure instant bite indication. For this reason the float outscores leger tactics in stillwaters and a bolt rig akin to the carp angler's can help beat deep hooking in rivers and drains.

Let's look at the business end first. Buoyancy can be added by injecting baits with air, using a syringe, or with special foam which is crammed down the bait's throat with a punch. Both have their drawbacks. It's difficult to gauge how much air or foam to inject and both take trial and error to get right. Too much mucking about reduces soft baits like sardines to a greasy mess. Some suggest pushing balsa sticks or polystyrene into baits, but both could have unpleasant consequences for any fish which escapes with the bait in the event of a missed take.

There's another way which is catching on fast. You can buy bait poppers or small polyballs which are just the right size from most tackle shops. The idea is to attach them via a short length of fuse wire, which is passed through the bait's mouth, out of the gill cover, and wound onto the lower treble on your trace by a couple of turns. With care, even soft baits won't come off the hooks with a popper attached to them. The drawback with all this is the hooks may not come out of the bait and into the pike properly when you get a take either. So you end up losing fish on the way in because you pulled the hooks into the bait instead of the pike on the strike and as soon as it shook its head you were history.

After much trial and error, I abandoned poppers and polyballs and started mucking about with bits of cork. And instead of wiring them through the bait's mouth, I attached them to a short loop of light pole elastic, threaded through the mouth and attached to the bottom treble with the help of a baiting needle. Done properly, it holds the popper in place under slight tension, so it won't interfere with casting or tangle with the trace as the bait sinks. But there's still enough give in it to allow the hooks to move where you want them to if the pike's gripping the bait when you strike. Corks cost next to nothing and you can adjust them in a second by plopping the bait in he margins. If it's too buoyant, slice a bit off with a craft knife.

So what about rigs? The best way to pop up baits in stillwaters is by laying on with float tackle. Set correctly, the rig fishes like the time-honoured lift method beloved of generations of tench types. Use a slim pencil float, attached bottom end only, with the stop knot set two or three feet over depth. The weight, best attached to the trace, will lie on the bottom when the line is slack. This means the float will lie flat on the surface until you tighten up. Place the rod in the rests and carefully sink the line and the float will sit upright. The second a fish picks up the bait, it will lift the lead meaning the float will usually lift and lie flat, before it slides away.

Whatever you do avoid self-cocking floats. They won't register a lot of the takes until it's too late to avoid a deep-hooked pike. The best design are slim balsa floats, around 1cm diameter and six to ten inches in length. They're buoyant enough to keel over instantly when you get a take, without making a pike drop the bait because it feels like it's towing the Queen Mary around with it when it does. Several firms market them or you can make your own at a fraction of the cost.

Weights are easy to attach to the trace. Either thread a fine piece of silicone tube onto the wire when you make your traces, and pinch three or four swan shot onto it. Or attach one of the slit Fox weights, by carefully stretching a rig sleeve into the slit to trap it against the wire. Both methods enable you to move the weight nearer to or further from the bait, which means you can fine tune the height at which it rides above the bottom. On venues with clear beds, I start with the bait a foot or so off, and experiment through the day. In weed or silt, you may need the bait riding higher to attract a take. Sometimes nailing it down with the weight almost on its tail works.

If it's rough, you may need to increase the weight to make sure it holds bottom against the combined pull of the bait and the float. Moving the stop a few inches deeper each cast can help fine tune presentation, as long as the float still sits up when the line is tightened up and the rod is put in the rest.

Legering offers a way of getting pop-ups out further and fishing moving water like drains and rivers. It sounds daft but make sure you use a big enough lead to tighten up to and hold bottom in the flow. You'd be surprised how much force even a moderate current exerts on thirty yards of line and a bait wafting about above your lead. It's vital that you can tighten down and set your drop-off properly on a tight line. A lot of the takes will be slack-liners that show as drop-backs as well, because the fish will often lift the lead when it takes a bait riding vertically above it. So make sure the indicator heads are heavy enough to show them if you're using a front alarm backed up by clip-on indication under the reel.

Ever thought of bolt-rigging for them..? Then the following might just make you consider it. I was fishing the Ely Ouse on a spring day when the flow was really pushing. I'd settled down opposite a promising looking boatyard on the far bank, but just couldn't get it right. Slinging the bait into the mouth of the boatyard, I'd had a couple of takes and missed them. I was sure both pike and prey were holed up over there. The big problem was the bait and lead kept separating on the cast, landing eight or 10 feet apart. By the time I'd tightened up, I was sure I'd dragged the rig out of the inlet into the main river. In desperation I bit the end tackle off, stuck a couple of rig stops on the line, threaded a bead on and attached lead and trace again. Now I had a stop two feet above the lead. "I'll sit right over the rods," I thought. "As soon as it goes again I'll let it have it."

First cast the bait and lead landed just a few feet apart. The popped-up roach was right where I wanted it. I stuck the rod in the rest, tightened up and nothing happened for a minute or two. So I lit a fag. Beep be be be beeeeeeep. The rod smacked round before I could even pick it up and the fish was well on. All twelve pounds of it. When I netted it, the bottom hook of the trace was snagged right in the scissors. Did that fish prick itself against the weight of the lead when it took the bait, bolt off and hook itself against the drag of the baitrunner..? Half an hour later the same thing happened. Four or five pounds this time, but hooked in the scissors again. Another one of similar size - and another screaming take - convinced me I might just be onto something.

We school ourselves to minimise resistance, but how successful are we. Thirty or forty yards of line across the full force of a flooded river creates resistance, without even thinking about the way the lead landed, the clip on the drop off or the baitrunner.

Maybe we'd be better off accepting we can't eliminate resistance and looking for ways to make it work in our favour. Imagine that popped-up bait, riding 18 inches or so off bottom. The pike's slinking along and there's a meal, bobbing about right on its nose, so it launches itself at it. As it does so, it clouts the weight of the lead, which pulls the treble nicked in the bait's flank into its scissors. Ouch, it bolts. It's on, before it's even had a chance to swallow the bait down. Before you even pick the rod up. Cool or what..?