Saturday 29th July - Chris Morris strikes lucky!

Chris Morris fished the Cross Hands "rubbish pool" on Saturday night instead of the usual Llangadog beats and at last managed to find a few daft sewin ( his words not mine )! He managed to hook three sewin & land one of about 2lbs. Well done Chris, you have at last broken your duck!

He had hooked & lost a fish earlier on a single hook fly black/silver + blue cristal strands size 6. The best fish that he lost was about 3Ib to 4 lb in weight. He also reports to have had loads of good pulls.

Rene, a guy also fishing the pool, managed a fine and silver 6.5 lb cock fish plus 3 more up to 4.5 lb on fly & later on worm at dawn. Amazing to hear of silver fish with the river down to its bones.

Lets hope we get some rain soon to freshen things up and bring in some new stock! Once again well done Chris. Lets hope this is the start of greater things to come!

Much better than my effort on the Thursday night before when I fished hard at the Road Bridge beat from 10.30 pm to 4.00 am without a single pull! The fish were there but would not play ball despite all my efforts!

Friday 21st July

This week the TEAM split up and fished in 3 different locations in the hope that someone would get lucky (other than Cerith who was otherwise engaged in the sport of a more 'courting' nature back at the ranch).

John and Chris fished the bottom beat, I fished the Churns and the Cattle Drink whilst Rod fished the Road Bridge beat.

J & C said that it was completely dead down the bottom and didn't see any fish or get any pulls! They moved up to the car park later on in the night but with no success. I think they saw 1 fish move and that was all!

I had a little excitement in the Cattle Drink with at least 4 or 5 good pulls and a few fish moving. 1 fish was a big bugger! About 1.00 am I put on a mouse and had splash after splash with it but nothing would take with any conviction! It was exciting though and I felt that any moment I would get lucky (Cerith probably already had got lucky by this time). I packed up about 3.00 am and walked back to the car.

Rod was fishing the Road Bridge with another friend of mine called Lance. Lance got into a 6 Ib fish but unfortuneately Rod finished up with a blank yet again having only had 1 pull all night!

John stayed over to fish the worm in Cruel Pool at dawn and got lucky! A fine 2.5 Ib sewin caught on a long line with no weights. His first fish of the season. Well done John!

Friday 14th July 2006 - Latest Report

Arrived on the river by 9.30 pm. Weather was perfect, warm with just a little breeze. The water is low but still very fishable. At dusk I saw a good fish of about 3 Ib jump opposite the log where we sit, in fact it was jumping quite regularly about 5 metres above the bush. I was encouraged! Then I saw other fish move in various places but most were shoalies of between 1 Ib and 2 Ib. Interestingly there seemed to be a lot of action further upstream so I went up to have a look. A couple of fish were jumping opposite the log with big roots, the log is about 25 metres back from the water and about half way between the ditch and the tin hut. It wasn't quite dark but I thought I would have a go at these two candidates! 3rd cast I hooked and landed a 1.5 Ib fish on a black and silver waddington. It was quite silver so it couldn't have been in the river very long.

Fished through the night all over the place. Just after midnight I heard a big fish around the bend somewhere but I couldn't be sure where. Had a few pulls on sunken lures but absolutely nothing on the mouse but that may have been something to do with the fact that it was very nearly a full moon with no cloud! I enjoyed the company of an adult otter and its cub, the cub swam up to me within about 3 or 4 metres. Brilliant!

At 3.30 am I thought I would go back up stream to where I had caught the shoalie. I put on a Rodders Special, 4th cast another shoalie, again quite silver and a good fighter despite its size. Both fish when weighed together came to 3.50 Ib. I enjoyed the night, had a bit of sport and I am sure that these fish will be good to eat. I would have liked some bigger fish but beggars can't be choosers!

So 2 fish brings my seatrout tally to 4 fish on the Towy up to 2 Ib, and 3 on the Torridge of a similar size but no sizable fish yet! Rod is fishing all next week so I hope he has some good look. I hope to be down on Friday if the wife will let me!

Just word of warning Rod, Chris and John. There was a herd of bullocks in the field and they were very frisky, in fact one nearly kicked me with its hind legs, bit scary! For any of you going down I have left some rocks near the gate but make sure you replace them please!

Tight lines!

Sunday 8th July

River running with a tinge of colour and whilst the weather was warm the wind seemed quite gusty so I decided to head for the shelter of the trees in the car park pool and the cattle drink. Now that the cofferdam has been removed from the car park pool and the broken sewer pipe repaired the pool itself looked good. Fished down twice without a pull and with no fish showing. Would you believe it the wind dropped completely by about 11.30 pm, would have been perfect down the bottom!

Moved down to the cattle drink and did the same with no luck. Disappointing after a 100 mile drive! As a last resort I went back up to the railway bridge pool and fished for about 1/2 hour. Saw 1 fish of about 3 Ib, covered it a number of times but to no avail. I can only put my failure to move a fish down to the colour of the water as the night was perfect, overcast, dark and very warm (13 deg to 15 deg)! Hope to go back down this Friday so lets hope things improve!

27th - 30th June fishing break

Having arrived at the river on the 27th I was alarmed to find construction work going on right opposite where I set up camp. Hymac and pumps were there to investigate a leaking sewer! This pipe had been leaking for years. Both I and my friends had commented on it many times although we didn't know it was a rising main that was leaking every time the pump house started up down river. Anyway the noise during the day made it almost impoosible for me to get any sleep. Fortuneately the pumps were turned off at night so I don't think it particularly effected the fishing.



I fished for 4 nights and caught 2 sewin, 1.5 Ib and 2 Ib. One on a mouse down in the cattle drink and one in the head of the car park pool on a black and silver tube fly.

Cruel pool was absolutely full with fish whilst there were one or two fish showing in other places. Worming in the pools was difficult because of lack of flow and an abundance of green slime that got attached to your line on nearly every cast. A good flood now would be very welcome.

Cerith and I enjoyed the smaller sewin for breakfast, cooked on the river bank of course.