Hi Philip,several good points made, particularily about the polyball keeping the line on the surface,I remember reading an article a few years ago about a guy fishing in france and he did as you have suggested but with the emphasis being to keep the line away from some almighty tree roots and snags, but thinking about it you could kill two birds with one stone, keeping the line out of harms way on both accounts!
What sort of range do you feel this method would be seemingly unpractical, I suppose it would depend on wind strenght and direction,not just for casting, because I would imagine casting a poly ball of any size would cause a fair amount of drag, well it does when I pike fish, but if you were talking about fishing 80yds plus then that's a fair amount of line to be having on or near the surface and what about birds/boats?
I suppose again it just depends where you fish and if it is practicle,wow it's certainly got me thinking!
Do you not agree though philip that at 60yds plus that after a few hours in the water that the line will absorb a certain amount and will get heavier and sink possibly finding it's own way into weed and bedding into the contours of the lake, I'm talking about when fishing a slack / ish line not the cheese wires I see in some of my local lakes,would this happen more with a stronger line and therefore heavier?
I remember a few summers back when I surfaced fished for carp and didn't use a line grease of any sort just how quickly the line used to sink and that it could be very detrimental on the strike because the line had sunk so far in a short space of time.
Interesting point on number of lines in the swim sometimes its the simplist things! Dan