River Parrett – Evening Cup – 27th June 2026

I know I say it every year but I really look forward to the Stoke matches on the Parrett, on paper it doesn’t sound particularly inspiring with 3lb being a good weight but I can’t get enough of it. The first match of the new season is always the Evening Cup which means I get to have a lie before meeting for some food at lunchtime, all very civilised and leisurely. It’s also the first of six rounds for the Memorial Shield which I actually managed to win last year for the first time after coming close several times. With small sections and dropping your worst result, there’s very little room for error and I scored 49 points out of a possible 50 and Hainsey won it with 48 the previous season, basically two bad results and you’re out of it.

After meeting at Cartgate for lunch (well an all day breakfast for me) we headed to Parrett Works for the draw, both fields below the bridge were being used and pegs 8, 9, 16 and 29 were on my wish list. True to form ‘The Bucket of Doom’ decided I wasn’t worthy and let me have 13 instead, a peg I don’t like and haven’t got a great record on. To make matters worse I was up against three of the aforementioned pegs in my section!

A short drive later I was parked behind my peg, it looked quite nice but then all the swims look really fishy. I set up a 0,75 gram rig for down the middle and a little 0.5 gram float for across to the cover. The side tray contained casters, maggots, hemp plus some worms.

On the whistle I started with single maggot trying to catch a minnow and avoid the blank but easier said than done and it took ages to get a bite which I missed! Coming a section shorter I finally got one and then had a nice roach on double maggot. It was hard going with bites at a premium and after two hours I only had four roach, a rudd, some gudgeon and a dace (plus minnows) for around a pound.

I did hook a better fish which I suspected was a trout but it came off and then not long after another with the same result, although I was fairly sure they both had spots on there’s always an element of doubt that it might have been a chub. Then it was third time unlucky and this time it leapt out of the water which confirmed the identity before coming off and next chuck I bumped a fish (another trout or even the same one?!).

Picking up the lighter rig I’ve gone across with caster on the hook, the float buried and I was into yet another trout! I safely landed this one before releasing it to probably annoy me again later. With two hours to go I hadn’t added anything else to the net and was still stuck on a pound so I fed some chopped worm down the middle via a bait dropper before going straight over it with half a dendra.

I had a little knock quite quickly before the float sailed away and after counting to five I struck and knew straight away it was an eel, not a massive fish at 8oz but getting one early was hopefully a good sign that I might get a few more. It proved to be a false dawn though and a further half an hour passed without incident until lifting the rig out and laying it again resulted in yet another trout. Highlight of the day was when a kingfisher briefly landed on the pole, the first time it’s ever happened to me in 47 years!

Time was running out and with only around 1.5lb in the net, my river campaign wasn’t getting off to a very auspicious start! With just 15 minutes remaining I fed some more worm and then had a tentative bite that eventually developed and I was sure it would be an eel but as soon as I hit it I knew it wasn’t but a decent roach was more than welcome. Back out again I missed a good bite and had another indication but time ran out as the whistle signalled an end to proceedings.

I finished up with only 14 fish (5 roach, 5 gudgeon, 2 dace, 1 rudd and an eel) plus a few minnows for 2lb or so and I was hoping I hadn’t blown out too badly. When the scales reached me, Dave Hilton was winning with a brilliant 7lb 15oz from peg 9 which included a stunning perch of 2lb 5oz, my fish went 2lb 6oz (the same weight as Wayne C on 8), Terry ‘The Toast’ had 2lb 2oz and Dave Pope on 16 weighed 3lb 8oz for second in the section.

I weighed 2lb 6oz for joint third in the section

Terry ‘The Toast’ on peg 15 had 2lb 2oz

Dave Pope was second in the section with 3lb 8oz

Back at the results and the other section had fished quite hard, Nick P had the top weight with 2lb 7oz on peg 27 followed by Nigel C and Harv who were joint second with 1lb 13oz.

Section A
1 – Dave Hilton (Stoke) – 7lb 15oz
2 – Dave Pope (Stoke) – 3lb 8oz
3 – Wayne Cooper (Stoke) – 2lb 6oz
3 – Jamie Rich (Bait-Tech/Colmic) – 2lb 6oz

Section B
1 – Nick Payne (Ilminster) – 2lb 7oz
2 – Nigel Clarke (Stoke) – 1lb 13oz
2 – Steve Harvey (Stoke) – 1lb 13oz

I picked up £7.50 for joint third in the section and 8 points wasn’t a total disaster but not the start I’d hoped for.

The Nugget-O-Meter had one of it’s best days ever, amazing donations from Rob Cox (£13), Wayne Cooper (£5), Norts (£5), Nick P (£4), me (£2) and Steve Chant (£1) saw the total rocket up to £434.

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