How Deep?

I'd intended to fish down stream of where I'd fished last week, until I got to the tackle shop Thursday morning. I conversation in the tackle shop suggested upstream was fishing better, with some nice bags of roach coming to maggot. Apparently the tactic was to fish a heavy stick, down the middle, with the shot strung out over the bottom half to get the bait past the minnows. They'd tried fish bolo style as well to avoid the minnows , but this hadn't worked quite as well.

On arrival I plumbed up the swim and found twelve foot of water, which is all well and good, but I'd picked up a twelve foot rod, not he fourteen footer so life wasn't going to be easy. Feeding a handful of maggots every trot I was soon into small 2-3 ounce roach with the occasional dace or chublet on the drop. After an hour of getting a fish every other trot a pike moved in and took a fish as I was winding in, biting me off. As I was putting a new hook length on I chucked a feeder out and like last week was rewarded with several minnows and a few gudgeon. This minnow thing puzzles me as I'd only taken a couple on float.
Eventually I started to get roach again on the float and this time they were somewhat larger, up to a pound. The bites weren't as often as earlier and often on the drop so I may not of seen some. Fiddling with the depth and/or tell tale shot didn't seem to make much difference to the bites either. Again a steady flow of fish was brought to a halt by a pike moving in. While I retied the hook an had a cuppa I popped the feeder rod put again, only this time I started to pick up tiny little roach rather than minnows and gudgeon. A last forty minutes on the float produced a few larger roach, but bites were rather sparse and I was about through my three pints of maggots si called it a day.

As with the previous week there was the plaintive squeak of a young raptor, I do wish I was better at identifying these things. This time though they occasional appeared in view, in what appeared to be simulated aerial combat.