Nothing reported again so one must assume nothing has been caught anywhere?
Rain and storms failed to appear and prospects of any real rain over the weekend seem to be receding too.  Difficult times indeed.
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Inside yesterdays Trout and Salmon was a catalogue from the Glasgow Angling Centre looking through its many pages I marvelled at the range of tackle  with its many duplications and the price of some of them  Waders for instance £700 plus, reels similar, rods even more.     I thought about my own tackle I've had for years and asked myself the serious question. "Was there anything in this catalogue that I really need that would increase my chances of catching a salmon a salmon.  I came to the conclusion -probably not.   Is it just me I wonder.

Have a better chance with these old poaching weapons . Crude but effective as I will show in a later blog next week.

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See below,  with thanks to Mr Ian Thorpe.

My first Sewin at night 

Every year our Family would travel to Tenby in South Wales for our holidays, my brother and I would be perched in the back of Father’s car as we watched the country side unfold on our journey. The M5 and M50 were yet to be built, so the route we took was slow but idyllic, we passed through country towns and villages and crossed many rivers.  I was fascinated by rivers from an early age and wanted to know the name of each one we passed. “That is the Severn” my Father would say or the Teme, Wye, Lugg, or Usk. However the most magical river to me was the Towy, sometimes  a silver stream running between shingle banks and at other times a vast lake lapping at the edge of the road.

In 1963 my Grandfather sent me, for my birthday, the book “Sea-Trout Fishing” by Hugh Falkus which I read avidly and which convinced me that fishing for sea-trout at night was something I had to try. However the opportunity didn’t occur until many years later, work and a young Family were the priority. We still went on our holidays to Tenby, I was now the driver with my wife and children on board, on the way we would make a compulsory stop at Llangadog so I could peer longingly over the bridge into the Towy.

Occasionally I would take the Family to Tenby at the weekend, return to work during the week and then join them the following weekend. My chance had come, I decided to call in at Llandeillo on the way to Tenby and purchase a ticket to fish the club water on the following Friday night, on my way back to Tenby. I discovered that a ticket could be obtained from Mr Roberts at the hardware shop in Llandeillo, in the shop I explained to Mr Roberts that I had never fished for “Sewin” at night before and could he recommend a quiet spot where I could practice unobserved and maybe catch a fish. He recommended a good pool at the top of the beat called Coedmawr, with a gravel bank, that was easy to fish. I also decided to buy some flies and asked which pattern he would suggest. “There is only one fly you will need” he said opening a box, all the flies in the box were identical, black tubes, nothing like the Medicine or Moonfly lures as described in Falkus’s book.

The following Friday evening I arrived at the river while it was still light, I found the recommended pool but to my dismay there was a local angler sitting on the bank above the pool fishing a worm, so I decided that I would go upstream of him and fish for trout, hoping that he would go home when the light faded. I caught a few small brown trout and salmon par and as the sun went down I approached the pool to see that it was vacant. I crossed the river so that I could fish from the gravel towards the high bank, there was a wire groin filled with rocks behind which was a very tempting pool. I had equipped myself for the occasion with a new 9ft 3inch 7/8 weight “Richard Walker” Superlite hollow fibre glass fly rod and two Intrepid fly reels, one reel was loaded with a mill end double taper floating line and the other with a mill end double taper medium sinking line. I had my tube flies, some small treble hooks and some stout leader and I was ready.

I had been told not to start fishing until the light had gone and I was unable to distinguish the join between the water and the bank on the far side of the river, I desperately wanted to commence but I waited and waited and then it was time. I started with the floating line casting to the edge of the groin and then working my way down the pool to the tail, nothing happened and I wasn’t really surprised. I fished through the pool a couple of times and there was no sign of a fish, it was now very dark, I held my rod out in front of me and I couldn’t see it. I was beginning to doubt the advice I had been given, perhaps Mr Roberts had a large stock of the tube flies he wanted to get rid of, perhaps I should try smaller flies, perhaps I should try the sinking line.

Then suddenly a fish was on, it was not a slow long pull of a take or the line stopping or a slight tug, it was a violent snatch as though someone was trying to pull the rod from my hand. I don’t remember all the details of the tussle with the fish, but I wasn’t in control and I was worried that I would lose it. I do, however, remember the landing. In Hugh Falkus’s book he said that when the fish was tiring it should be worked upstream, the net placed in the river and lifted when the fish came down with the current. This was all very well but I couldn’t see the fish, the net or the rod, it was too dark. Eventually I held my torch along the handle of the net and when the fish came downstream I could see it clearly, I lifted the net and it was mine.

I despatched the fish quickly, at that time there was no stigma associated with killing a fish, no size limits and no catch and release, there were plenty of Sewin in the Towy. I punched the air and did a little jig around my prize, I had joined the league of the Welsh Wizards of the night fly. I could have fished on but I was content. I drove to Tenby and the next morning weighed my catch, it was 7lbs, not a monster fish, but one of the most memorable.

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