Readers Report
Llyn Berwyn
At last a long weekend free to head west to go fishing, and there had been some rain too, this was too good to be true. And yes it was, as I crossed the Loughor and the Tywi heading for the River Teifi I saw that the water was very high and very coloured, a drought all summer and now a deluge had turned the river into a swollen brown mass. Only the second visit to the Teifi all year to pursue the Sewin looked to all extents and purposes like a complete wash out. As I came into view of the Teifi my heart sank it was bank high and chocolate coloured. Maybe the River Aeron would be in better condition with it’s small catchment, a quick call to one of the locals said no, it had broken it’s banks and was coloured as well. I called my friend who was due to join me on the river later that night to give him the bad news, “Where else can we go?” was his reply. I’d had a good day on Llyn Berwyn near Tregaron earlier in the summer and having my float tube in the car, it was as good a bet as any. A slight detour for both of us meant we could meet in Tregaron before heading up to the lake.
A fantastic sight awaited us when we arrived, a warm overcast day had encouraged a variety of flies to hatch and trout were feeding voraciously on a huge variety of aquatics and terrestrials. There were big splashes interdispersed with little splashes and I couldn’t pump my float tube up fast enough.
Tackling up as fast as I could, an emerger on the point a small black hoper on the dropper and a bibio on the bob fly, I kicked off gently as the fish were feeding all around.
Lunch by the lake.
A cracking little brownie of about 8 inches sucked in the hopper on my second cast and broke the misty silence of the lake as he splashed towards my hand net. I found an emerger pattern was working best with the fish taking it hard which meant they were hooked fairly deep in the mouth, they seemed to be so confident that I wasn’t missing many takes. The fish were not very big, but the takes were coming thick and fast. For once I was caching more than my friend, which was very enjoyable. He paddled over to ask what flies I had on my cast, only to be answered “the right ones”. Being terrible at keeping secrets, I didn’t let him suffer for long and gave him one of the CDC emergers which were proving so effective, I was striping them back some times and leaving them static at other times and getting pulls both ways.
The float tube was allowing me to fish into the shallows effectively and I was hooking fish in centimeters of water. It still suprises me how close in to the shore the fish actually lie. Another thing that was suprising me was the sheer number of trout that were taking our flies, most were fairly small, around 6-8 inches but the best one of the early session was 14 inches that fought like a trojan. This fish was to be lunch and with another of 10 inches proved to be delicious wrapped in bacon and cooked on the barbecue.
The weekend had been saved, indeed I’d go as far as to say improved by the change of venue and quarry. I would recommend anyone who enjoys trout fishing to visit Llyn Berwyn and have their socks blown off by the number and quality of the fish from this fantastic fishery.