This blog is a record of my fly fishing antics since 2006 on my beloved River Towy. I hope you find it informative and entertaining. Tight lines!
Monday, April 22, 2024
Monday, April 15, 2024
Fantastic turnout for the BIG RIVER - LITTLE CLEANUP!
2 seniors (me and Anthony Painter) and his wonderful son called Si.
Absolutely PARR for the Course!
Tuesday, April 02, 2024
Llangadog River Clean Up - NEW DATE!
Big River clean Up - Sat 13th and Sun 14th April 2024!
Please bring waders if you have them!
Thursday, March 21, 2024
River Clean Up POSTPONED!
Due to the river height we have decided to postpone the Clean Up till April! A new date will be announced in due course.
Saturday, March 16, 2024
Llangadog Angling Limited - Pre Season River Clean Up - Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th March 2024?
Notice to all readers!
We need as many volunteers as possible so please make an effort to attend at least one day?
Friday, March 01, 2024
Smart Rivers? Maybe this is the way we should go?
What is SmartRivers?
- To set up a SmartRivers hub we need a host organisation and a group of 8-10 volunteers to monitor 5 sites.
- The first year is the 'set up year' in which all the benchmarking and training takes place.
- For all rivers being added to the project, a professional scientist will come and complete an initial professional benchmark on your chosen 5 sample sites, in spring and autumn. This provides a scientific 'baseline' for your river and also helps us know what species we should teach you to identify. WildFish would be able to fund this.
- Training is two full days. Hubs are responsible for covering the training cost which is £1950 (the host organisations usually help unlock local funding for this).
- Once trained, the volunteers must sample twice a year (spring and autumn) and there are two pathways to choose from. Volunteers can 'sample and identify' where they do all the sampling and analysis themselves, or 'sample and send' where they collect the sample and post to a professional lab for identification. Sample and identify is free, whereas samples posted are £185 exc. VAT per sample. We provide the hub with a microscopes if completing your own ID, but you must obtain your own nets, buckets and sample preservative.
SmartRivers Project Manager
Thursday, February 08, 2024
Save the River Tywi Facebook Group created and it needs your Urgent HELP!
I created this Facebook Group on Wednesday 31st January 2024 in pure DESPERATION! A week later we have over 300 Members.
I have watched my beloved river slip into oblivion over the past 10 or 15 years. I've fished it for 30 years I think and started this Blog in 2006. Runs of migratory fish have declined dramatically and these days you see very few anglers about. Rivers like this are an essential part of the eco system and in a healthy condition are essential for all creatures to survive and thrive. Without anglers Farmers will pollute the rivers with inpunity! NO FISH means NO ANGLERS means MORE POLLUTION!
The problem is huge and complicated. Things are being done. The Carmarthen Fishermen's Federation has over 500 followers and is working hard on improving habitat and restoring breeding grounds etc but still the river is DYING! The Welsh Government and the NRW are both complicit in it's destruction and that of most Welsh Rivers! The problem is all over Wales in all rivers, brooks, streams and tributories!
The aim of this Facebook Group is to gather support for immediate ACTION. We're not going to write letters! We're not going to create endess Petitions that nobody takes any notice of! In some way or other we hope to make things happen in other ways! We've all done the letters and Petitions and they don't work!
We are going to take a fresh approach if we can - an approach that displays URGENCY because if we don't ACT NOW Welsh salmon and sea trout (sewin) will become EXTINCT!
Please join this Group if you care about Salmon and Sea Trout and all things in Welsh Rivers! Please join us to save salmon and sea trout from EXTINCTION in Welsh Rivers! Time is running out!