Low rivers, hard fishing but plenty of flies.

Well what a summer, the river are very low with few fish. but as i write the weather for cast, does say we are having heavy rain tonight. fingers crossed it will put the rivers up and a few fish will run and give us a bit of fishing, this weather reminds me of 1976. a year that is always in my mind, as my Dad died that year and he was my fishing partner. missed him so much on fishing trips after that. plus that year we had a very dry year, and the river were also very low. but in those years there was many fish still to be caught, but the fish did have a bad time with many dieing with lack of oxygen. stocks were very high then, in the top photo that pool you see would be full of fish. that thick you could walk across them. and looking down from the bridge you could not see the bottom, how times have changed. this has been the worst year i have see for a long time, the top photo shows some of the water i fish a lot. and also looking down the river i fish a lot right down to the tidal water, a beautiful river to fish and the Towy valley a great place to be. very often i sit by the river day and night and think how lucky i am to be able to fish it, not fished much this year been very busy tying and water conditions not good. but have had a few fish last week at Llangadog about 4lb and 6lb falling to my snake flies. the week before did take my mate Andy to fish the river Cothi on the Abercothi estate, when we got there. Andy had never fished the Cothi, so i showed him a few pools above the junction pool were it joins the river Towy. let him have the pools to himself, as he is a good angler and would know how to fish them. i went down on the Towy, and as you can see Andy had his first Cothi sewin about 31/2lb. and i had one the same size, but i was plagued shad which are a pain on times.   

 Although the rivers have been very low around the country, the orders have been coming in thick and fast. above are some of my snaketruders. tied on my wire mount this pattern has been very popular with salmon anglers up north, and catch a good few for those who have tried them. plus fished very well for sewin on the river Towy,

 Wilkinson snaketruder,

 Orange snaketruder,

 Green highlander snaketruder,

 Black and yellow snaketruder,

 And the Tyne toucan take on the snaketruder,

 Above some of my long shank GP sewin patterns, plus squirrel blue and silver. Gone over to Ireland for a swim.

 The set of flies above, were for one of my customers who fishes the river Cothi and Towy.

 Ally shrimp size 10 treble,

 Ally shrimp size 8 double,

 Size 8 double Stoats tail,

 Size 8 double Blue and silver ,

 Waddinton shank, blue and silver, size 10 treble 11/4" shank.

 Waddington shank, black and silver size 10 treble 11/4" shank.

 Secret weapons above,

 The all rounder,

 Squirrel blue and silver,

 Black,

 My Snake flies ate very popular, tie a lot of these for the sewin anglers. but they do take a lot of salmom and bass,

 Above, very popular pattern in snake fly sqirrel blue and silver. 

 Above, showing the color combos, that fish well.

And above, a set of flies sent to Norway.  Tubes in cascades/ Toucans/ doubles toucans S/ weapons and Ally shrimps.