Resuscitating this thread to keep all things Western Cleddau in the same place.
Like so many on the forum, I have had a really slow start to the year, even for brownies.
But the last couple of nights have been (by my fairly poor standards) really good.
The Western is low (0.18 metres at Treffgarne) and still clear, but a bit warmer than this time last year.
I fished the last two nights and they were very different:
- On Friday it was warm and humid all night, but wind got up around midnight. I fished down from the bridge, and picked up a few brownies before dark as I checked out the flows (or, rather, lack of them) in the main pools. I had one very big hit in the tail of a pool and lost my Greenwell’s Spider size 12 double - probably a sewin. As it became properly dark, I fished the bottom pool of the beat upstream, figure of eighting the flies back. I had three quarters of an hour of wonderful fishing as a string of good (for the Western Cleddau - 6-8 oz) browns took my flies - mainly a size 8 Secret Weapon on point. Terrific sport on a 3-weight 10ft rod. Not much on the way back up the river until the top pool (which I call First & Last - not sure it has an official name). A smallish sewin (?1.5lbs) took a rather large size 4 Daioni just as the moon was rising. That broke my duck for the year.
- Saturday night. I didn’t get to the river until 2230 - the sun was down but still plenty of light. I hurried down towards the bottom of the beat, but stopped at a pool I had not covered properly the previous evening. A quick cast in the centre of the pool to check how my line would fish, and another similar-sized sewin took in broad daylight! This time a rather smaller size 8 Daioni. Then no fish for several hours, including in the most productive pool of the previous night. But I heard several decent fish go for my Surface Lure - always a fantastic sound!. Finally two good browns from the First & Last pool. Unlike the previous night, a bit of taar around midnight, and the car thermometer said 13C - 4C cooler than the previous evening.
It is quite challenging fishing the Western: most of the pools are pretty small, and I suspect only hold a fish or two this early on. And the holding spots are even smaller: those pools where I have now caught fish over several seasons, the fish have typically taken within the same square metre or so. So I feel I only have a couple of shots per pool. But fishing light seems to work for me (although I have yet to be hit by a really good sewin) - I can turn a pair of size 6 flies over comfortably with a 4-weight line, and I cannot help feeling that the lack of disturbance on these small, calm, pools really helps.
