On the fly: sea trout fishing in Wales

As the new season opens in Wales, Will Hide puts his waders on to discover the only way is Towy

There’s something rather Zen about standing in a river pondering life’s big questions. Should I switch to decaf? Do I really need the kids’ cable TV package when I don’t have children? Did I walk 10,000 steps yesterday? Had I removed the fluff from the tumble dryer?

There were a few clouds in the Carmarthenshire sky, but otherwise it was an absolutely gorgeous day. A light breeze blew the reeds by the riverbank and ruffled the grass leading up the hill to the imposing ruins of Dinefwr Castle. I’d just seen a kingfisher dart into the water and been rendered spellbound for a good 10 minutes as an otter swam casually upstream, bobbing up and down. Really the last thing on my mind was “will I catch any sea trout?” Which was no bad thing, as the relationship between fish and rod was proving rather elusive.


 Casting off on the banks of the Towy

The Welsh sea trout season opened last month and runs through to mid-October. As the name suggests, this species leaves inland rivers to venture out to sea in order to feed before returning to spawn. This oceanic journey exposes the fish to a richer source of food, which makes them substantially bigger than brown trout you’ll find in the same stretch of water.

I was supposed to be night fishing, when the sea trout are at their liveliest, but that had been put on hold due to high river levels. There was talk of undertaking a “fishing safari”, moving between various spots on the River Towy, just outside the pretty town of Llandeilo. However, my companion Tom and I decided not to move around – were perfectly content here in our idyllic little spot.

Fishing tackle

Tom is a keen fisherman at home in Wiltshire, along with his young son Adam, but I was a beginner, so the first fly-fishing lesson I received from 42-year–old local ghillie Jamie Harries was how to cast.

We stood on the edge of a field near the river as he instructed me with a lyrical sing-song lilt on how to cast the rod from 2pm to 10pm on a clock face, and the motion to accompany it was as if I were hammering a nail, rather than flicking my wrist, with arm kept close to my body. Of course Jamie, with years of experience, made it all look effortlessly easy and we chatted as I practised.

“I don’t understand why British people spend thousands of pounds and travel thousands of miles to fish somewhere like Argentina, but ignore what they have on their doorstep,” he opined, sweeping his rod before him. “They want to find that elusive double-figure sea trout, but last year we had around 50 that were over 12lbs, and our biggest was around 19lbs. We get foreigners coming here from all over the world, from Russia, America, Switzerland.”

Our home for the weekend was the Cawdor Hotel in Llandeilo, with bucolic countryside views from my top-floor bedroom. It was a friendly base from which to explore the small, pretty town, with its Friday morning market, and which seems to be bucking the national trend by holding on to an impressive range of independent shops. We ate at the hotel one evening, then at the Angel Bistro down the road the other, where the food was equally good. Our appetites were somewhat blunted, however, as we made a classic schoolboy error by popping into Heavenly Desserts Emporium on Rhosmaen Street a few hours beforehand. An old Morris Minor parked outside St Teilo’s Church gave the place an air of a Miss Marple mystery, but the only thing getting murdered was my hopes of ever catching a sea trout.

The Cawdor hotel

Back on the Towy we moved from field to river to practise fishing with a spinning rod, and then waded in. Fish or no fish, there’s something inherently calming about being in the middle of a river far away from car horns or the beeps and pings of mobile phones and urban life. I moved slowly, practising what I’d been taught, sharing my space with the otter that clung closely to the bank before moving out of view. Dinefwr stood above us on the hill, guarding this part of the Towy as it had done for hundreds of years since it was the seat of power for the Principality of Deheubarth. Long before that, there were Roman forts here.

“There’s no magic to this,” said Jamie “you just need to keep practising. Women and children tend to pick it up quicker than men, I don’t know why. I caught my first sea trout when I was seven.”

Alas there were no fish, but it hardly seemed to matter. We eventually retired to the pub, where a framed timetable for the train from Llandeilo to Swansea suggested the route was only about 10 minutes quicker than it had been 150 years ago. But I wasn’t in any hurry. Time for another pint and maybe an ice cream. The sea trout would still be there tomorrow, just out of my reach again, while I pondered more of life’s big questions.

Travel essentials

Golden Grove Fishery (01494 524411, golden-grove-fishing.com) offers a two-day learn fishing course from £300pp, including two full days of ghillie guiding plus all flies, fishing permits and transfers to and from The Cawdor Hotel. Sea trout season on the Towy runs from 1 April - 17 October. B&B doubles at The Cawdor (01558 823500, thecawdor.com) are available from £85pppn. Rail travel to Llandeilo was provided by Great Western Railway (gwr.com) and Arriva Trains Wales (arrivatrainswales.co.uk) via Swansea. For more information on Carmarthenshire see discovercarmarthenshire.com