Presentation, presentation, presentation

Visited one of my local waters, hoping for some decent roach and bream. Weed luxuriant. I had left my catapult on the stages on my banker bream pond so feeder it was to be. Have yet to replace my broken Sportex tench rod  but given the limited open water available one rod didn't seem to be much if a handicap even if perched high on a recently jetty less bank. Several empty feeder casts to find some less dense weed saw the corn quickly taken by hand sized roach. Adding feed seemed to bury the rig in the weed and the strike dampened by the weed closing round the feeder. Couldn't get consistent feed out or work to  rhythm so just scratched the surface. Not the biggest fish of the shortish session in glorious sunshine but another water that has some intriguing hybrids Anal fin is far too long and dark and the whole shape just not roachy enough despite the blue tinting.

Spent time talking to one of the  publicity shy members who combined modern rig techniques  with a very old style presentation using that thick weed to good effect. Neither of us could understand how how the slack line presentation resulted in positive hook ups but it did.

Off to the river to try a longer glide for dace. River up and coloured, and plagued with canoes. Went with a waggler to have an option to  fish higher in the water to avoid the gudgeon this time round. Don't usually fish close in on running water with a waggler but reasoned that the float would more robustly pull the bait along and through the weed rather than hang up as it does with a double rubber float. For those who swear by shirt button shotting and holding back spend some time watching in clear water to see why that rarely works the way you think it does unless you fishing in-stream or directly behind the float or right down the margin.

I did bulk my shot down to make  a chain to drag over and  not into the weed. Bites were either the float speeding up, rising in the water or sinking like a dragging under stick float but different. Greatly increased dace to gudgeon ratio. Did have one decent perch on but canoe invasion knocked it off . "Sorry, I didn't see you there".  Plank.  BTW, lovely fresh plump white maggots from Harris Sportsmail which is just down the road