Good fun on the float
Soon had a paternoster out alongside a reed bed downstream. Had only been in a couple of minutes before I had the first run. Unfortunately, this turned out to be one of my friends called "Jack"! A couple of casts later with the float rod and I had one of his mates go airborne after a chub I was just lifting out of the water. This was followed by a dropped run on the paternoster and an another attack on the float rod by something that left a very impressive boil at my feet. Seemed to go quiet after this initial flurry of activity. However, whilst I continued to catch steadily on the float rod, ending up with a nice mixed bag of roach, chub, dace and bleak, there wasn't any sign of any perch.
Perhaps with the recent cold weather I now need to go looking for the perch, rather than building up a swim full of silver fish and waiting for them to come to me, especially with so many pike about. Will definitely be going back with the pike gear though!