River Parrett – Axminster Cup – 24th August 2025

If you’ve followed the blog for a few years, you will know I love fishing Stoke’s matches on the Parrett but the Memorial Shield has so far eluded me and in five years I’ve finished second three times and it’s starting to feel like I’ll never win it. With a river like the Parrett, you obviously need to draw some good pegs and little bit of luck never goes amiss either! It’s always a close series and with your best five results (from six) counting, there’s usually little room for error and last year Hainsey won it with 48 points from a possible 50.

I got off to a decent start with a second in section but then in round two I had a lowly 7 pts (and lost an eel which was costly) and already it felt like my series was hanging by a thread as another blow out and any slim chance would be gone for this year. Then I drew my socks off and two section wins saw me leading by a single point after four matches but another bad result and it would be all change again.

For the penultimate round we would be upstream of Parrett Works, a stretch I’ve never even seen, let alone fished. Trying to find out as much info as possible, apparently it produces some nice nets of fish for pleasure anglers but there were also some horror stories of matches being won with a single minnow along with trout and crayfish being a problem so I really wasn’t sure what to expect!

After a lovely breakfast in the Ranch (thanks Kirsty), it was time for the draw, there were five pegs in an area called ‘The Cricket Bat Field’ (something to do with willow trees apparently) and I really fancied drawing there purely for the fact you can park in the field and they are all short walks! The desired peg numbers were 11-15 and I got my wish when I pulled out 13 although I still didn’t know if it was actually any good!

I got to my swim and it looked quite nice with some cover across although the river was still gin clear and painfully low. A simple approach today with a 0.75 gram rig for down the middle and a little light float for fishing across, on the side tray I had casters, maggots, hemp and some disco pinkies I’d nicked off Dave Hilton (cheers mate). Going into this one, the top three in the league were me, Dave Pope and Dave H and as we were all in the same section today, whoever came out on top would be in a great position heading into the last match.

On the whistle, I decided to start really negatively and just pinged a few casters and some hemp down the middle and the same across either side of the cover. With a single disco pinkie on the hook, I thought I’d get a minnow quite quickly to avoid the blank but it actually took nearly 10 mins before I had my first indication (which of course I missed!). Next chuck a lovely positive bite resulted in a pleasing amount of elastic coming out before I netted a nice 4oz roach to open my account.

There was virtually no flow and the float was barely creeping through but I was getting a few bites, a 6oz trout wasn’t ideal but then a cracking 8oz roach in mint condition was followed by a gudgeon, a small chublet and a little roach. It wasn’t fast and furious but after two hours I’d added another big roach, some smaller samples plus quite a few gudgeon with everything on single pinkie. I kept expecting minnows to be a problem but I’d only had one, not that I was complaining!

It was a scorching hot day and I could see anglers opposite in the other section walking about so guessed it was fishing hard and Nick P confirmed that there wasn’t much being caught apart from minnows and gudgeon when he came for a walk. I’d been feeding casters and hemp across to the cover and I could see little chublets taking the odd floating caster so with an hour and three quarters to go and my bites down the middle dwindling it was time to have my first look over.

I was just about to add some more sections when the float buried and when I struck it was solid, initially I thought I’d hooked bottom but then there was the unmistakable thumping of a big fish. Despite the light 0.09mm hooklength, I thought I had half a chance as it was in open water with not much weed about but then it headed for the far bank. It didn’t tear off and I stuck the pole under the water hoping it would stop but it just kept going and snapped me – gutted! I think it was probably a big chub but it could have been a trout or maybe even a carp (as there are quite a few at Parrett Works), I’d loved to have seen what it was.

I put another hooklength on but only had one more little roach down the middle, I tried going a section past the feed and also going right across with the light rig but never had a bite so with just over half an hour left, I decided to feed some chopped worm and sit it out for a big fish. Fifteen minutes passed without an indication and I was just beginning to think that was my lot for the day when I had a lovely slow deliberate bite only to strike into thin air! Next put in, the float’s gone again, I left it for a couple of seconds before hitting it, this time I connected and although it wasn’t a massive fish, a 6oz roach was a nice end to the match. I finished up with 35 fish including six lovely roach for probably 2.5lb so hopefully I had 3lb+ and had only caught that one minnow all day.

After packing up I went to watch our section weigh in, Nick on peg 9 had gone, Fieldy had 10oz of gudgeon and minnows and then Dave P was on 11 and had struggled due to the thick scum that got blown into his peg and stayed there all match, he’d also had a few crayfish problems and weighed 4oz (mainly small fish). Dennis H was next and had caught loads of gudgeon and a few roach for 1lb 12oz and then my fish went 3lb 11oz, Danny B on 14 weighed 1lb 8oz which included a lovely roach and then Dave H had done well with loads of gobies and small roach for 2lb 9oz.

Fieldy had 10oz on peg 10

Dennis weighed 1lb 12oz of gudgeon and small roach

I had 3lb 11oz which included some lovely roach

Danny had 1lb 8oz on peg 14

Dave Hilton had lots of small fish for 2lb 9oz and second in the section (and match)

Back at the results and the other section had been rock hard with the Grand Wiz having the top weight with 1lb 8oz which meant I’d won the match and secured another ten points for the series.

Section A
1 – Chris White (Stoke) – 1lb 8oz
2 – Derek Goad (Stoke) – 1lb 4oz
3 – Cliffy Gaylard (Stoke) – 1lb 2oz
4 – Rob Cox (Ilminster) – 11oz

Section B
1 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 3lb 11oz
2 – Dave Hilton (Stoke) – 2lb 9oz
3 – Dennis Hawkins (Stoke) – 1lb 12oz
4 – Danny Blunn (Stoke) – 1lb 8oz

I picked up £30 and I think if my calculations are right, my third consecutive section win means I can’t now be caught with one round to go in the Memorial Shield,

Jamie Rich – 46 pts (7)
Dave Hilton – 43 pts (8)
Derek Goad – 41 pts (6)
Dave Pope – 40 pts (5)
Chris White – 35 pts (5)
Chris Norton – 32 pts (0)

your best five results from six matches count towards the trophy (dropper in brackets).

Another fantastic day for the charity with amazing donations from Danny Blunn (£5), Wayne Cooper (£5), Rob Cox (£4) and Cliffy (£1) as The Nugget-O-Meter total shot up to £538.

There’s still a great offer running if you fancy treating yourself to some new fishing gear, use the exclusive discount code AgainstMenandFish10 to get 10% off when you shop online at Somerset Angling

Also I still have copies of my book available from eBay here or Amazon here