Rodney Byles voices his concerns about the state of our river!

I can understand the interest and excitement roused by Spence’s fish of a lifetime and wonder if he took scale samples and its length for the Celtic Sea Trout Project. However, I have been fishing the Towy near Bethlehem for about 25 years and in that time I have noticed a steady and very worrying drop in sewin, especially in recent years.

From my limited knowledge the leading authority Environment Agency Wales (EAW) and the Countryside Council for Wales (CCW) don’t appear to be doing anything positive to stem this decline. I recently spent five nights on the river, which looked in perfect condition and was at an ideal level and clear. The previous week’s spate should have encouraged plenty of fish to the middle reaches. However, during my visit I fished every night from about 22:30 until 05:00, clocking up over 30 hours and only managed one sewin and a few offers. I saw very few fish move. One night there were 13 anglers on this stretch and none had a fish. However, what was even more worrying were the concerns of the more and very experienced local anglers I met, some with 40-50 years on the river, all discussing and complaining about the decline and considerable lack of fish and especially this season. I can only wonder at what it must have been like to fish the Towy in the late 1950s with annual rod catches of around 20,000 sewin.I, and pretty sure many other concerned anglers, would like to know what the EAW and CWW have been doing or are doing to stem this dramatic drop in sewin. Do these authorities know or indeed have any idea of the cause or causes of this decline? If not why not? If so what are the causes and what are these authorities doing about them? What do we pay our exorbitant game fishing rod licence fee for and how much of it actually goes towards sewin conservation? It’s not as though the EAW and CCW have been unaware of the decline and strongly believe that if nothing is done very soon it may not be too long before there are no sewin in the Towy left to catch.

I suspect there may be several factors contributing to the decline. These could be over fishing in the Irish Sea, and if so who is policing this, and do the authorities have any idea of the number of sewin caught. The estuary and coracle nets are probably taking far too many sewin at present as a percentage of the total run. Perhaps they should be more closely monitored and even considerably restricted or perhaps their licences temporarily revoked until sewin numbers hopefully recover. A rod caught sewin is worth considerably more to the local Towy valley economy than those from the nets or coracles. Although the dam water acidity problem may have been solved with liming, is the cold water discharge now affecting the sewin run? I suspect it is and there is the possibility that cold water flows could further considerably increase if the dam and reservoir are extended to generate the need for more hydro-electricity. Have the authorities been monitoring coordinated dam discharge and water temperature downstream and its possible affect on the behaviour of radio tagged sewin? Are toxins from sheep dips and the chemicals in cow shit getting into the spawning headwater streams and into the main river after floods? Is there or has there been a regime of water sampling in these areas to check and possibly rectify water quality? If not why not. What impact is the effluent discharge in Carmarthen having on the sewin and why haven’t the authorities apparently done anything to stop it? The increase in predators, such as Goosanders, Cormorants and Otters, is also bound to be contributing to the decline. There are two large broods of Goosanders just on the Bethlehem stretch this year.

Enough is enough, but I know the EAW and CWW won’t take any notice of individual complaints and concerns. However, I’m told that money talks, so before it’s too late I would suggest that perhaps all Towy anglers and clubs somehow unite and refuse on mass to renew their rod licences and demand the authorities act now with one overriding objective: Stop the dramatic decline in sewin and take the appropriate actions to restore stocks to those of years gone by.

Rodney Byles