The llyn we were heading to was deep in the Cambrian mountains; a vast expanse of bare rolling hills, clothed only in grass, bracken and bog. This part of Wales has been called a desert (albeit a damp and green one) and before us was an oasis – a beautiful circular llyn heavily edged by reeds, horsetail, lily pads and quaking swamp.
To get here we had tramped for more than 3 miles over the green moors, following the meandering brook that flowed out of the llyn. The final mile had been hard work – it was pathless and entirely covered in tussock grass, or as Alan calls it ‘Disco grass’. I’ve also heard it called ‘babies head’ grass, but whatever you want to call it, the stuff is dreadful to walk through. To make things worse I was also carrying a bag with a float tube in it – we’d heard most of the lake was unfishable due to weed so I thought it might be a good idea to bring it.
Alan headed over to the other side of the llyn to a clear spot while I blew up the tube. As I did I noticed some coch y bonddu beetles in the grass and also in the margins of the lake. So I tied one on my dropper, with the usual streamer on the point.
Launching, I noticed how cold the water felt. It was also very peaty, almost like black coffee. It didn’t feel like June – it was raw and breezy. It was a slow start, and I’d covered a lot of water with no action. Then I saw a good rise, tight to some reeds. I covered it well but no response. It started to rain, and I got pretty cold fast. As soon as the shower passed I had a take – a first fish, 9 inches long and as dark as you would expect from a peaty llyn.
And so it went on, showers and takes. The fish were clustered and just off the weeds in the margins. I had a good number of 8oz fish with a 10 ouncer about the best. All were well fed, certainly not stunted. Almost all my fish had taken the wet coch, so I had put another one on the point which worked.
Alan had done well on the bank, with chest waders he was able to fish a fair bit of the lake. He had stuck with a streamer and out of half a dozen nice fish the best had been a good pound. There are stories of 3lb fish here and I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true.
After two hours we had fished the whole of the llyn, which was pretty small at around 5 acres. I was freezing cold, so I was quite glad to get out of the tube onto dry land. I soon warmed up in the endless tussock grass – it was like being on an assault course. Sore footed, we made our way back to the car, another great day out.
Enjoying your blog Ceri, some excellent photographs, thank you.
Thank you Jon. A lot of the images in this post are by Alan Parfitt, full credit to him as an awesome photographer! He really has a knack for capturing the feel of these wild places.