As I write this short, but dynamic blog, the infant Storm Agnes is just starting to gain some momentum …. I’ve had a morning of fitness and being spoilt in Ty Morgan’s, as Daisy had phoned through to the bistro and paid for a muffin with a very classy birthday candle lite in it …… I was presented with it by the lovely Andrea as I waited in anticipation for my well earned big breakfast ….. I felt seeing as it was my Birthday, and I had done a cracking session in the gym earlier, the little devil on my shoulder had been well and truly knocked off his perch, and in its place a somewhat teatering halo was there instead ….. well, for a very short time !!!!!
Anyway, the fishing, “superb” in one word !!!!! Cooler, with a mild south westerly wind the last few days, three sessions of only three or four hours, both morning and afternoon, produced on Claerwen on the Sunday and Monday, with sublime sport in a choppy wave from the western shoreline….. cracking takes to my own variant of the Katie Mac and also the bibio ….. it’s funny, the Katie Mac is an absolute stalwart on most wild llyns and reservoirs, you just can’t fault it in fairness !!!! It just looks so trouty in the water, retrieved either fast or slow….. I did one morning on Claerwen, followed by a late afternoon session on the Monday, perhaps three hours, but boy the sport was fantastic….Again, a choppy south westerly, bringing the fish up, and they were wanting a piece of the action….. Some good fish also on that second day , lovely fit end of season, bronze spotted wild Welsh trout, just blissful catching such beauties in the deep cold water of the hallowed Claerwen ……. Fish were in the twelve to sixteen inch range, and strong too, just lovely bringing such gorgeous fish to the net …… and best of all that twenty second rest, getting their oxygen levels back up in the net, then releasing them into the peaty depths of the secretive lake, probably never to be hooked ever again …..
I have noticed that the average size of fish this whole season has been superb on Claerwen reservoir ….. I’ve caught some clonking fish, on most visits too. Very rarely do I not catch a couple of sixteen or seventeen inch fish from most of the fishy spots that I know and love around the massive 900 acre sea in the middle of Wales …… I’ve had sessions where most, if not all brownies are what I class as good fish for this huge upland water ….. it’s really promising and bodes well for the future . I must admit the bracken clock hatch was phenomenal this year. I hit it just right, with three hectic mornings, the lake and the moorland were alive with the tubby clumsy beetles…… super fast, high protein food for the trout ….. and they we’re making the most of it. I think in the three short Morning sessions mid June, I netted in excess of seventy fish, all of the top …… sublime sport too !!!!!
So, yesterdays morning sortie on Caban Coch was again full of clonking strong brownies …… pass this first reservoir by at your peril, it’s deceptively good, when you know where and how to fish it…. The surrounding broadleaved forest that smothers most of the shoreline, will tell you a thing or two….. firstly, lots of terrestrial insects get scoffed by the resident fish, that get blown onto the water from this superb ecosystem that envelopes this massive sheet of water, and secondly there are some great little constant feeder streams that run into Caban Coch, again bringing with them associated food and food particles ….. Also, there is the culvert run offs from Dolymynach dam…… again another lush reservoir full of food !!!!! So that is why these fish grow to a good size…. !
There is nothing quite like your line tightening hard into an Elan Valley brownie…. It’s just such a solid no nonsense smash to your fly ….. awesome stuff !!!! In Caban Coch, the fish bore deep too, in this steep sided, cold reservoir …. I did have clonking fish to the net yesterday , absolute brutes for the Elan …. Half a dozen crackers, before the weather turned really lousy …As always, the trout are treated carefully, and slipped back into their peaty home …. That’s the best feeling ever….. catching a totally wild fish , netting him, then releasing him back to his watery lair ….. bliss !!!! So there we go, I dare say the rivers will stay high and soupy right up to seasons end, we’ve got some pretty awful weather the next three or so days, I may have a brief sortie up the Afon Claerwen, the outflow from the reservoir, which is some two miles long before it enters Dolymynach reservoir…. It has some technical, fun water and I’ve had some cracking fun, catching small, eight inch brownies on a Parachute Adams in the heads of the pools …. Fast as a puff adder and great fun …… yes, I may do that on the Saturday, I’ve convinced myself in these last ten seconds … I’m glad I put in some fun sesssions on the wild streams last week …. The Edw, Clywedog and Cammarch are all different, but all great fun with their own characteristics and anomalies….. but all with super fast, feisty wild brownies ….. just superb fun !!!! I’d go as far as to say some of the best dry fly sport I’ve had all season was on the little Clywedog brook ….. not because of numbers, but the stalking and presenting of my dry fly to risers ….. it’s the most complete feeling ever, seeing a rising fish, wading carefully into position, delivering your precise tangle of feather, fluff and a hook in the right place…. The world stops, you focus…. Boom, that splashy take, you strike , he’s on …… it’s our drug, it’s what we do !!!!!
