09/04/2023 - Wild Welsh spotties

Couldn't come down to Wales without seeing how the resident brownies in "my" urban trout stream were getting on and I'd brought a tub of dendras with me for exactly that purpose, rather than have to scrat about in the father-in-law's compost heap. 

The level of the stream had been up when we first arrived but, due to its flashy nature, it was back to normal after a couple of days and whilst it was quite windy I knew that I would be sheltered once down below the level of its steep, tree-lined banks. Therefore headed off to Haverforwest at first light, but found that the layby that I usually use as my sneaky access point down to the water was blocked off due to roadworks. However, a bit further on I found a parking spot next to an electricty sub-station that afforded an equally quick and hopefully un-noticed scramble down the bank. 

Not that my secrecy is to avoid getting caught, but more about not revealing this little jewel to anybody else! Tackle was as before, my ultra-light lure rod, 6lb braid on a size 1000 reel, 4lb flourocarbon leader and a size 12, pink jig head. A worm was hooked through the saddle "wacky style", pitched up to the head of the first run and allowed to drift down with the current - all the time waiting for that rattle on the rod tip. 

That first spot yielded two, fin-perfect little Welsh spotties in consecutive casts before the jig head got snagged up in one of the various pieces of urban junk littering the stream bed and I had to wade in to free it, killing the swim in the process. Carried on in the same vein for the next couple of hours, snagging up and losing a handful of jigheads, but catching several more acrobatic little brownies whenever I managed to get the bait to successfully run through a swim unhindered. 

Also shared the stream with a pair of industrious dippers that regularly flew up and down, often within a couple of feet of me. Presumably they had more important things to worry about than some weird looking bloke stood knee deep in the water, like feeding a brood of hungry mouths. 

Found that several of the large trash dams from the summer had now gone, whether removed by design or just pushed on by the floods I don't know. In addition the redundant weir part way down the section had also gone. I would like to think that this had been done purposely to improve passage for any migratory fish coming up from the estuary (I've had a little sea trout and even a flounder in the past), but again suspect that that the old and un-maintained structure just gave up in a flood. All of this had created new spots that I would have to investigate properly at a later date, as I was on a strict timescale to get back for an Easter brunch. 

By the time I had worked my way back to the car I'd had nine fish and missed half as many again while the cars and lorries flew past on the bypass above my head. The only downside was that I'd got a wet left foot after stumbling and puncturing my old waders (worn exactly for this reason!) on some wire or rebar. Not that I was complaining - give me an urban stream full of wild spotties over a managed fishery full of stockies any day!