Llyn Brenig

THE weather last week was ideal for eating strawberries and cream or playing cricket, but less so for casting a line over the waters of Llyn Brenig, writes seasonal ranger Ilan Evans.

The start of the week was warm and bright, and there was a slight cooling by the midweek with a hint of some rain in the air.

The water temperature actually dropped during the week, with the top few feet of the water recording a temperature of 18.5C by Sunday, still very warm, but maybe an indication that the weather might be on the turn.

As of last week, the fish have naturally gone deep and if you are prepared to use a DI 5 line, then you will catch fish.

But, with a bit of shade from the clouds, the fish have returned to the top six feet of water.

Pete Morris has been pulling fish out on damsel nymphs and he said “the bank seems to be fishing as well as the boats”.

The only real difficulty was the fighting great quality blue trout, which have been described as “torpedoes” by J Owen and “very acrobatic”.

With the rod average being up on the previous week and hitting 4.96 fish per angler, there is room for a great deal of optimism.

The quality of the fish being caught has also been very high and much commented on by the fishermen.

This has once again been down to the efforts of our fish farmers Jack Finney and Stefano Roca, producing fish that David Owen has described as “fish that fight above their weight” and “a silver beauty”.

The fish farmers have also hinted that the stocked fish last week will be in peak condition, with an average weight of over 3lbs and some extra big “slabs” around 7lbs.

So, there is much to look forward to.

With a challenging previous week, the fishing improved ten-fold with massive bags off the boats.

The biggest bag was from Craig McLeod, with a staggering 31lbs 3ozs for his six fish caught on daddies off the dam, which is an average of 5lbs a fish.

John Davies said it was the best day of fishing he has had and he described Brenig as a “top fishery”, with six fish coming in at 22lbs.

He lost count of how much he returned.

Digger was close behind him with a bag of 21lbs 4ozs.

It’s nice to see fishermen catching beautiful rainbows and blueys, but last week we saw two brown trout coming out of the Brenig Arm.

There was one of 1lb 12ozs by Mark Adrian Nixon and a 'fish of a lifetime' from Stephen Matterson, with his brownie coming in at 7lbs 8ozs.

The fishing was a lot better during the week and the bank fishermen had success along Hafod Lom and the ring of stones, plus the corner by the dam.

Boat fishermen had success also along Hafod Lom, the Brenig Arm, the north end and around the cages.

The top flies during the course of the week were black buzzers, tequila blobs, coral boobies, damsel's nymph, cormorants, daddy long legs and sedgehogs.

Tight lines!