I have to get this in, in respect of my earlier comment and my suspicion of bait choice in conjunction with the type of float used.
Can you imagine if that was an ordinary straight or bodied waggler float?
Those movements before the actual take, which a traditional Perch bobber such as the one used will withstand with its upper buoyancy, would be otherwise registering as positive bites and you would be striking the water to a foam with missed after missed bite.
They may not be new but it goes to prove that not everything new is progress, some things came along for a good reason and have yet to be surpassed.
I may not like the modern reincarnations but Drennan recognised it and many use them to very good effect.
Steve, I've been chasing some nice Perch for the last two winters using feeder gear with lobs, Dendras and maggots.
I agree 100% with your views about a bobber being the best choice of float when using a big lob as bait as my bites when feeder fishing are so so often twitchy starters with my indicator bobbin rising and falling for several seconds before rising up to my rods butt ring.
I interpret this as being the fish attacking the lob needs one or two , several even, gulps to swallow the bait , then, that done moves off, maybe to find more or to evade a pike that seem ever present on the waters in fishing.
This is when the bobbin rises positively in the same way that a bobber will sink out of sight being the moment when the angler should strike.
Earlier on last late autumn I was using a mag and wag approach with a pouch of maggots every cast and had numerous quality Perch on several visits . All the bites were sailaways with me being met with a solid resistance of a quality perch on the strike. When taking the hook out of several fish it was plain to see several maggots at the back of the throat similar to how we often see with chub showing how they must have been simply going thro the slow sinking mags with abandon.
What I was doing was a far cry from most standard approaches to catching Perch and to be honest it may never be as good as those Perch were attacking a huge shoal of perch fry but were still open to other offerings on the day.
All that said if I were on a river (I have a swim on the Tidal Trent earmarked for next year)it will be a lob n bob approach !
