Sunday 11th October - Somerset Teams of 4 league River Parrett Langport

This is a great league and in it's second year, for me brings new venues and with 15 teams booked in makes it competitive as well. Another positive point is the money is very well spread out paying top 3 in the section.
The Parrett was a first for me, the only time I have really seen it is going over the tidal stretch on the M5 or while in the center of Bridgwater.
It was difficult to find information on the stretch we were fishing around the market town of Langport, I did search a few blogs and got some information but then came across the match results on Langport AA's website when there was a match between Taunton and Langport, here are the results.

Straight away I could see that a number of anglers fishing it used it as a practice match for a league the following week. There was a bit of a write up to go with the results and the river condition was not good with little or no flow and a lot of weed in some pegs as you can see a lot of anglers struggled, so not good.
Only a little bit of prep needed on the Saturday and also obtained my caster, maggot, worm an groundbait from Cadbury Angling http://www.cadburyangling.co.uk/
Draw was 08:00 at the Langport Arms Hotel right in the town and arrived in plenty of time to meet up with Sean, Don and Chris. It was very busy inside with lots of breakfasts on order and a bit like Faulty Towers with regard to service.
Captains went up for the draw and we went outside to sort ourselves out, I was on peg 8 and chris was on 19, best part was we could walk from the car park.

 

Shortest walk I have had on a river ever, looking back towards the car park from my peg.

There was a decent amout of colour in the river and a bit of pace, in fact it looked very good with lots of small fish topping.

My peg was an end peg upstream with the nearest angler about 100 meters away, so some advantage.

Upstream end peg 8 and looking down the early part of the section, 9 to 15 was upstream of me.

Simple set up today, 13 meters at full depth (approx 6 feet) with a 2 grm float where there was some area's of the bottom which were clean but a lot of streamer weed. 5 meter line down the inside with a small 0.80 grm float for fishing between two lots of bull rushes (where there was around 4 feet) with chopped worm for perch and finally a waggler for all the way across where I had about 5 feet of water. I mixed up a little bit of groundbait for cupping in with the chop and caster.

Looking down the match length below me a lot of guys had set up whips, pole and wags.

At the 'all in' I thought for a moment I was on the Avon as all the anglers below me balled in big jaffa's, around 5 each. I thought why! if you cannot get through the weed on the bottom what you doing putting bait on the deck or was I going to be battered. I decided not to follow suit and kept to my plan so cupped in 3 soft balls on the inside, loose fed caster in the middle and on the far side. Went across with the wag first and had a small chublet of around 2 oz immediately, several more followed and the odd small roach. kept this going for the first hour and from what I could see I was doing better than anyone below me. I tried the middle while still feeding across and got fed up after a while not being able to get a clean run through due to the weed. A look on the inside produced one small roach so went back on the wag for the rest of the day. Fish were not big but they kept coming despite a rubber dingy going through. I did get a bonus fish in the form of a 12oz perch at the end of the swim at around 2 o'clock. By the time 3.30 came and the end of the match I knew I had probably beaten the seven pegs below me but what about the others upstream that I could not see.

I walked up to see the weigh in and there were two 4 plus kilo weights and I wasn't sure I had that. The scales confirmed I hadn't but I was third in the section of 15 with 3kg 650grm so happy with that.

My section results sheet

Back at the Hotel Sean had also come third in his section and Don and Chris finishing in a reasonable position as well. Top weight on the day was Kev Perry with a high 5 kilo, followed by Lance Tucker with 5 kilo plus as well, both Sensas Thyers (Gold I think).

We came 3rd on the day so good result on a river we have not fished before. Seansa Gold and Silver finished 1st and 2nd Both Sean and I picked up money so thats my third pick up in three weeks.

Next week is a Clevedon Club match on the Sedges (Brick Lake).