Fishing Floats

Back when we were waiting at the airport to fly to Japan, we met a woman who was also going to be on our flight.  In talking to her, she asked me if I'd heard about the people who collect glass fishing floats.  I hadn't, but she told me about them and it was something I started looking into as soon as we got here.  Jeff and I went to a get together of local float collectors after we'd only been here for a week or two.

At the meeting, we learned about the different sizes, shapes, colors, and color patterns that the floats come in.  Also, most all floats have a stamp from who made them.  Some people get really into that, trying to collect all of the different marks.  I knew pretty much right away that I wasn't going to be too worried about that, but I knew that I did want to try and find some floats.  I had hoped that I could in the years that we'd be here.

I got some information from a couple of the collectors about good times to go float hunting.  It helps to monitor things like the tides, wind speed and direction, and so on.  Jeff and I had then gone out a few times and found nothing.  Well, I always find a ton of beautiful shells and some other neat stuff, but no floats.

Today we went to the beach, walked a total of 7 miles... and found 5 floats!

I am so happy with them, especially the tiny one in the lower right of the picture.  I'm pretty sure that is the smallest size that you can find on the beaches.  I had hoped to find one of the tiny ones after learning about them, but had also heard that they are very hard to find.  The "baby float", as I've been calling it, was actually the first one we found today.  The one on the top right has a wire net around it and some sort of flashy tassel hanging off - some type of bait I wonder?  It was our last find of the day.

These are all small, I think we ended up with a 2-inch, two 3-inch, and two 4-inch sizes.  However the floats can be much bigger in size, all the way up to 14-16 inches I think.  Jeff was hoping we'd find a big one, but no luck with that today.

I had thought that if we ever actually found any, that would be it - I'd be good and wouldn't have to search anymore.  But I think we would both like to find a big one and it was very thrilling finding all of these today...  So I'm sure we'll go beach combing again at some point.