On our trip to the Spoils yesterday, both @Saintly Fish and I tried float fishing down the tide while anchored. The theory is that using a float to suspend your bait just off the sea bed while trotting it back in the tide presents the bait more naturally drifting in the tide, and covers more ground than a static bait. There is also a theory that it puts hookbaits out of the noise zone of the boat (similar to uptiding).
We were using balloons and shark floats to suspend big baits and 1lb leads, allowing them to drift back for 20-30m before holding station.
Results were good. I had three conger to the float in three drops. I found that as the tide increased the floats became less effective and harder to keep tangle-free, so probably a technique for an hour either side of slack water.
I can't say it out-fished regular downtiding though as our downtiders were also producing fish on every drop as well, but it is something I'll be doing more regularly from now on, particularly if baits under the boat aren't producing.
Anyone else used this technique?