Hi Ian,Ian wrote:I'm going to pick your brains here .i fish a place called Spring bank quarry.the bit I fish,only now and again,goes to about 25ft deep.i have tried it a couple of times in winter and usually just put a feeder on and chuck it and see,but I would like to try the float because I have seen them topping even in the cold days.i was wondering where to start depth wise.i don't get bites on the feeder apart from the odd tap so they must be up in the water.is there a general rule of thumb on a starting depth if they are topping in that sort of depth of water.i don't want to start fishing at 20ft then work my way up.what would yous do.
Right, from experience I've found the optimum depth to be around 7 feet in most rivers and lakes give or take a foot or so
If for example you were fishing a water that had uniform depths of around 6 feet deep but then come across an area that was 7-8 feet I'd fish the deeper hole as roach luv depressions
However your question is a bit of an awkward one to specifically say what to do for definite,
From what you've described I'd float fish and start at around mid depth at about 10 ft, feed how you normally would but wouldn't want to make bait mix to heavy as as you now don't want it to sink like a stone to the bottom, simply because yer not on the bottom, if after a while you start to get bites on the drop it may then pay to shallow up on yer rig but at the same time I wouldn't get to carried away and go rediculasly shallow because as you most probably already know that as quick as bites can materialise they can also vanish to being bite less where they've had there fill and moved on
Hope this sought of makes sence mate
All the best
Stuart