Water at last, during the last week in April we had the first rain here for five weeks, and of course it hasn’t stopped since, I suppose we’ve received our allowance of sun for the year.

One thing however is certain, the trout fishing has been excellent, the Seiont is a changed river, each year now since 1999, water quality and clarity is improving, fly life again is abundant, I can comment with fear of contradiction here, as since 1992 when problems manifested themselves, I have been checking certain areas of the river for caddis and other invertebrates, these were completely absent until ’99 when the phosphate plant at Llanberis started to meet its consent level. Annually since I’ve noticed tremendous improvements, with this fish stocks have increased, the smolt run this year is again a tremendous improvement on last season. I’m really confident that this year we’ll see an improvement in the salmon run, during the fishing season that is, as during November last there were tremendous runs of late running salmon, however these are no good whatsoever for the fishermen, only the poachers, and with the reduction in the E.A. bailiffing effort there seems very little chance of one of those being apprehended anyhow.

Back to the brown trout, the Stablau area of the Seiont has produced some excellent specimens, all stuffed to the gills with freshwater shrimps and caddis, there is lovely water in this part of the river, with very light fishing pressure, this will not last no doubt as the next improvement scheme is to construct foot bridges over the deep drainage ditches which abound here.

Llyn Nantlle is fishing it’s socks off, there are very good catches being reported, with most anglers practising catch and release, the boats are in heavy demand, however as we’ve gathered together all the necessary materials and equipment, we’ll be starting to erect the jetty shortly, hopefully by the time this is read it will be complete. This will permit more boats to be made available.

The Llyfni is not fished on a regular basis until late April early May, depending on water levels, so hopeful next month there will be some news to report.

Prospects.  Reports from Caernarfon Bay indicate that there are very good shoals of both bass and sewin waiting to enter the Menai Straits, sewin are actually being caught at certain locations in Anglesey by shore fishermen spinning for bass, so once the rivers start dropping we could be in for some early sewin, these are fish in excess of 4lbs.