Sheringham wrote of using floating crust in Elements of Angling, first published in 1908. Not under the rod tip. He preferred a greased line letting his bait drift out with the wind. John Martin too wrote a few years earlier of using crust (though subsurface for roach) and noted how it was a bait that is rarely if ever mentioned in other angling books.Mike Wilson wrote:Snape
I'm not sure that Dick was the first to use floating crust as Flt.-Lt. Burton wrote about this and it was reproduced in BB's "Confessions" [1950].
This however was some 5 years after Leslie B Thompson recorded in his diary 26th May 1945* whilst fishing a 'Still Pool on the Charles' [ USA River] that ' The floating bread crust works'.
As they say there is little that is new in fishing.
[* published in 'Fishing in New England']
Mike
It's almost certainly my favourite method for carp.