Langport & District Angling Association

Fishing News

River Parrett

River levels

The Angling Trust has put a useful website on the internet for finding river levels; one I use when planning a fishing trip on the river.

The web address is www.fishinginfo.co.uk.

Click on the 'Find A River Level' tab and enter 'Langport' in the search box.

This will show a map of river level measuring stations in the Langport area.

I find the 'Monks Lease Wq' at Combe and the 'Oath' at Oath Lock locations give meaningful levels for the river.

Beware the level at 'Westover' which is the river side of the Westover Pumping Station opposite Cocklemoor in Langport. When the river is low, this measuring station shows a smooth horizontal line which suggests the level sensor is probably above the current water level and so not showing the correct level.

I hope this site is of some use to you.

Thursday 8th August

Fran and I fished Stuckies. It was a warm day, sunny to start with, then increasing cloud later in the morning. There was an downstream breeze.

There was a steady flow, suggesting water was being run off to make way for the approaching bad weather in the next few days. A fair bit of eel grass, reed and duckweed was washing down with the flow.

There is still a lot of eel grass on the Stuckies section and it is up to the surface now.

We cleared a couple of swims on the overgrown banks. We normally carry a reaping hook with us in the net bag to clear vegetation on the bank, at this time of year.

We then tried raking some of the eel grass out to see if we could create a clear spot in the weed but although we created a pile of weed on the bank, it didn't really make much difference; still, it was worth a try!

Fran fished a 6 metre whip and managed to fish at a depth of about four feet. He fished maggot or caster over loosefed hemp and caster to catch roach, small chub and rudd for a total weight of 3lb 3oz.

Unfortunately, a large tench, approaching the landing net, decided to dive into the marginal weed and shattered one of the sections of Fran's whip and the fish was lost!!

I started off with a 7 metre whip and a 1 gram rig, fishing at a depth of two feet. Loosefeeding pinkies, with maggot on the hook, I caught lots of tiny rudd, roach and chub. I pushed most of the shot up tight to the float to try and get a slow fall of the bait but I was getting too many tangles. So I changed to a lighter rig; 0.6 gram and fished at 5 metres. This got rid of the tangles as I was able to 'whip' the rig overhead and straight out in front of me. The weed would often drag the float under if I hadn't had a bite on the drop, then I just recast again.

I continued to catch roach, rudd and chub, with a few better-sized fish showing as well, a few small skimmers and two perch for a total weight of 5lb 5oz.

With steady feeding, you can draw the fish up through the weed and catch shallow.

A very enjoyable session!

Combe Lake

Please make sure you shut the gate securely in the otter fence when entering and leaving the lake.

If you are fishing Combe Lake, why not let me know what you caught; photos of your catch would also be appreciated. We'd love to know how it's fishing for our members. Email me.

WEED

I know some members aren't happy about the weed in our lake. However, the weed is very beneficial to our fish and the waterfowl. It contains lots of food in the form of invertebrates. It provides shelter and protection for our fish. It also helps to keep the algae levels down and improve water quality.

Most of our fishing can be done in front of the platforms so we only need to clear the weed from where we want to fish. This is easily achieved by spending a few minutes raking before we tackle up. This gives a short period for the swim to settle before fishing. Raking also stirs up the silt which attracts the fish into the swim.

A simple weed rake (as shown above) can be made by joining two garden rake heads back to back and securing with cable ties. A length of strong nylon rope can be securely attached.

Thursday 6th June

Fran and I fished the north-east corner of the lake. It was a warm day with a fair bit of sunshine and a bit of breeze.

Fran pole-fished maggot over groundbait to catch these two nice tench and a few roach, rudd and perch for a total of 5lb 6oz.

I pole-fished sweetcorn or double red maggot over micro pellet to catch two skimmers of a 1lb apiece and tench of 1lb 6oz and 2lb 6oz plus a few roach, rudd and perch for a total of 6lb 2oz.