Gliffaes Country House Hotel

It is rare to write of a passing, before the passing. Obituaries are supposed to be written after the event. But this is different.

The Brabners and now the Suters, but still family, have run Gliffaes since 1948, and three generations have made this the most special place for as long as I have lived. I first discovered the hotel when my parents would make the day long ride that it was in the mid sixties from Surrey, to visit their first born, a boarder at Christ College in Brecon, for half term, now known as an exeat.

What do I remember back then? Well the peacocks, obviously, and the lovely nine hole golf course adjacent to the A40, which I would pester my Dad to play with me on. But not too much else, other than the scale of the building which is the hotel, the expansive grounds, and the grand trees and colourful gardens. And the glorious River Usk flowing through Gliffaes’ generous grounds.

But recently James Suter wrote to his and Suzie’s long list of loyal clients with the sad news that Gliffaes will close at the end of September…the hotel we all love has been sold to a buyer who plans to make it his home.

The thrill of arriving for a long weekend enjoying the daffodils of early Spring, the azaleas a little later, looking for a car space as close to the front door as possible in case it rains on one’s partners coiffured hair will be no more. Lunch or tea on the terrace listening to the river below, a thing of the past. Enjoying the most comfortable bedrooms (our favourites were Rooms one and six). Re reading the catch books to see what I caught in 1992…

Gliffaes is a place where memories are made. Fishing the evening rise on middle beat, Jimmy’s infectious laughter, scrutinising the flies selection to try to learn which were the catching flies of the moment, scanning the back copies of Trout and Salmon, enjoying the photographs in the bar with a glass of Welsh whisky to hand.

One of, if not THE, best fishing hotel in the UK will be no more.

But thank you to the Brabners and James for letting us all stay at your home, for, in my case, fifty seven years. For Peta, James and Suzie and your two daughters, wherever you go next, good health and good fortune.

Ban the dumping of sewage in our rivers

PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION –

The Panorama exposee of illegal practices by water companies, last night cannot be allowed to continue.
That raw sewage is discharged into our rivers is an unacceptable health hazard, and quite literally, is killing wildlife.
A campaign has begun to have this brought to the attention of Parliamentarians who may not be aware that the EA,
who are responsible for regulating the actions of the water companies, have failed miserably in this regard.
I think the pace of this campaign will increase, but please add your name to the petition to ensure that it does, and better,
send this link to contacts and friends of your own, who like most who watched the program, will be outraged, by how
water companies are killing our rivers.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/582336

My dear friend Jimmy

In the early hours of this morning, the man I first met thirty years ago, and through whom I learned how to fish the Usk, passed away – Jimmy Devoy. Back then he guided guests of the Gliffaes Hotel. We became firm friends, and even after I felt he had taught me all he could, I would always ask him to fish with me whenever I visited, which was almost every year. I think Llandetti was our favourite Gliffaes’ beat, but we fished other waters too, including the Red Barn in Abergavenny. Using his across and down technique for nymph and wets there, I recall that morning, hooking and missing several – Dai Missum, he christened me! Inevitably one wildie took pity on me and succumbed. “Call yourself a guide, Jimmy?” We laughed.

On the very last occasion we fished together, and for the evening rise at Llandetti, he watched me hook and lose a fine fish, then netted two himself immediately after. “That’s how you do it” he laughed, and so did I. And laughter is what I will remember the most about Jimmy, as well as the constant chatter, banter, and his love for the Usk.

Dammit…I will miss him so much

My Stone…

…was placed at the spot where I caught my first wild brown trout from the Usk in Brecon last week.

 

 

Wye & Usk Foundation

I love fishing auctions and regularly bid in those of the S&TCA, the WTT (to which I also submit offers for fishing in the streams in the southern Alps near to where my wife and I have a home), the Monnow Rivers Association…and the Wye & Usk Foundation, and the latter, for reasons that readers of my blog, will be well aware.

Last year the W&UF offered a lot which intrigued, and I bid for it and won.

It was for an engraved stone which would be lovingly released into the river Usk, which is where my fly fishing adventure began. And it will be post lockdown and I hope to witness it but may not be able to.

Eventually someone may pick up this (my) stone from the bed of the river where I learned to fish and wonder…well what?

Will that happen next year, in five or fifteen years, or fifty or five hundred years?

When they do, will spates have smoothed the stone and erased, what was carefully engraved?

If I cannot be there, I have asked that it be placed, or maybe dropped, into the river on the downstream side of Llanfaes Bridge.

This is my stone.

Land of My Fathers..

I have now ‘netted’ wild brownies in every one of Wales’ 22 Counties…mission accomplished !

Now I will put ‘pen to paper’ in the hope I can encourage more anglers to see and enjoy the more remote places my journey has enabled me to enjoy.

Gwynedd (#20)

Every one of my stories has another aspect which in my mind enhances my fishing experience.

When David (Thompson) promised me a Gwynedd trout, albeit on his terms, and in this case based on the older designation of Welsh counties, it was to be in Merionethshire! Which today, is, of course, Gwynedd. As is Caernarvonshire.

Wales today is so much more than it was. Glamorgan, that famous and successful cricketing county, cannot be so now, because it is…well, how many administrations? Just how small can a county be, and how can Blaenau Gwent be justified, in costs terms? Or Rhondda Cynon Taff, for that matter! Mid and North Wales have lost Montgomeryshire and Merionethshire and Radnorshire. South Wales has added cost on cost, where it cannot afford to. Daft or what?

Anyway…I am sure you get my drift. Is more better, one wonders !

But back to Merionethshire, or rather Gwynedd.

The outstanding sea trout river which is the Dovey enters Cardigan Bay at, of course, Aberdovey. To fish its trouty waters requires a day ticket which can be bought in Machynlleth. And now you will know where I am going with my opening paragraph, for a ticket can be bought in Mr News, at 5 Penrallt Street. So what, you may ask!

Well, behind the counter of this delightful throw back, is a shelf, partitioned with vertical wooden slats about three inches apart, and visible along the left hand verticals are sticky labels with names on them…Dai him, and Ethel her, and I guess those spaces are where are placed the latest edition of Railway Modellers News, or Knitting Weekly, or even the Radio Times (does this still exist?), awaiting the arrival of Dai and Ethel, which prompts a friendly chat between Mr News himself, or his charming assistant, and their loyal and important customers. I love it! Customer service in spades…memo to W H Smith – no self- scanning here. Just people, real people, people who adore and respect their customers….where did that all go?

I bought the latest, and so-called, ‘improved’ edition of Trout and Salmon, to play my bit! (sadly, it’s not improved, by the way)

Bless you, Mr News…and may you and your business, prosper.

The River Dovey (Afon Dyfi) rises in the small lake Creiglyn Dyfi at about 1,900 feet (580 m) above sea level, below Aran Fawddwy, before flowing south to Dinas Mawddwy and Cemmaes Road, then south west past Machynlleth, the only large town in its course, to Cardigan Bay at Aberdyfi. It shares its watershed with the River Severn and the River Dee before flowing generally south-westwards down to a wide estuary. Since the closure of the lead mines and the decline of the slate quarries, the Dovey is now a very clean river, with good runs of salmon and sea trout.

The fishing on the Dovey is controlled by the New Dovey Fishery Association, and day and weekly tickets are very modestly priced.

My ace Navigator, and OS Map ‘junkie’ did a splendid job getting us to the stretches, where we knew were, for sure, in Gwynedd.

I confess that when I am confronted by a stream which is so different to what I am used to, I struggle rather. It’s a psychological thing, and utterly without logic, but I bet I am not alone. Such was the Dovey, whose reputation as a sea trout river far exceed that of a brown trout water, and between 1700 and 2500 are reportedly caught every year. And the parts we sought out looked sea-trouty, and intimidated me!

A morning of casting with no reward, did little to encourage, either, so an early lunch was taken at the Brigands Inn, at Mallwyd, which did little to impress. Waiting a full five minutes at the bar whilst others were served, and without a ‘hello’, or ‘be with you in a minute’, seemed hospitality at its worst. Let’s hope the afternoon would be better, we agreed! At least the beer was worth waiting for.

‘Apres midi’, we explored some very interesting stretches of pocket water,

but upstream, even more sea trouty waters beckoned, but eventually a small brown took pity on me, in a riffle,

and succumbed to this fly.

Now one small fish hardly entitles me claim that I have conquered Gwynedd, but he counts! And I am grateful to him/her!

The scenery here is splendid, and my fish came from a stretch of the river where the southern side of the Snowdonia National Park was visible.

And it was a gloriously sunny day, and enjoyable for that alone. Noisy, too, in part. One of the locals’ past times is to climb to the top ridge of the mountains and look down into the Dovey valley on the fighter pilots practicing low level flying, under the radar, literally, at record speeds, as they race past, out toward the Irish Sea, and photograph them smiling up to said photographers…very dramatic, and a worthy distraction from hard fishing!

But I had my Gwynedd trout.

The Terry Bromwell Auction

It is 10pm and I am sitting in the bar at the Bear at Crickhowell reflecting on our (mine and Rhys’) afternoon/evening fish on the Llynfi…

Firstly, Mark, thanks for your thoughts on where, because without these we might have floundered. We parked up near Pontivethel Bridge and walked as far downstream as we thought you recommended, and the overgrowth made assessing where should enter the river difficult, but we succeeded and by a fallen tree, so maybe that was where you intended we started!

 

The river was very low we agreed, and we targeted the flows, for casting into the slower was likely to spook whatever might have been there. Flies were few, but we saw midge and caddis, but little else, and the fish were looking down. A persistent Halfordian, me, I fished dry, but Rhys favoured a two weighted fly, French nymph rig.

What happened?

We caught six fish…five WBT, and one grayling,

and missed/lost as many again.

Rhys’ rig netted more than mine. I lost more than he did.

Wow, it was tough! We spotted the odd fish and cast to these, and whilst moving some, rarely caught what we targeted, and most came from the quicker water at the top of the pools. Technical fishing is how I think it is described…dammed difficult, would be my description, but fishing with Rhys was fun. We leapfrogged each other easily, and he took my rod to try for what he spotted.

Chatting was more productive than the fishing, but I learned a bit from a very good angler. Dan Popp’s flies worked for me (again!)…thanks, Dan!

We did visit the end of the beat close to the Wye, but in the low flows, it was unfishable.

I so enjoyed this visit, and thank you GAS, and Rob Bending, whose efforts to support Terry Bromwell, is why I (we) did.

Best wishes to all at GAS, and glad you’re better, Terry

Trout in the Town

So many of Britain’s wild brown trout are quite small, but there are some beauties, too, including this fish which came to my net in April when fishing with Rhys Morgan.

We reckoned it to be between 2 and 3 lbs, but it is overwintered and lean. Imagine what it could weigh after gorging on Spring’s olive hatches! It came from MTAA’s water on the Taff in Merthyr Tydfil, quite close to where Will Millard, guided by my friend Dan Popp, caught a cracker whilst filming the lovely series “The Taff: The River That Made Wales” for BBC Wales. It was one of several fish rising to emerging olives mid afternoon that day, and between Rhys and I, we caught two and I lost a third. All were of similar size – remarkable.

The Taff, in my view, is now South Wales’ most impressive trout river, having recovered from decades of the ravages of industrial waste, thanks, in no small measure to the efforts of the MTAA, a club I am proud to be a member of.

Flint (#17)

Flint is a relatively small county and there are just three rivers of note – the Alyn, Cegidog, Terrig plus the mighty Dee, within or along its boundaries

The Alyn is a tributary of the Dee and rises at the southern end of the Clwydian hills. It is just 25 miles long and runs across a limestone surface which creates potholes and underwater caves into which the river flows through some of the summer, depressing water levels, and creating dry river beds at times. Limestone is unusual in Wales where most rivers are acidic and so less fertile. Perversely through winter the Alyn can flood!

But this was the stream which appealed but how to access it?

Perchance I discovered that the Warrington Angling Association had recently acquired a stretch near to the optimistically named Hope village, and after an hilarious exchange with Club Secretary, Frank Lythgoe (mostly around age and costs) I was soon a member of this impressive club which boasts of fishing on four canals, sixteen rivers and their tributaries, and nineteen still waters. (£5 for a key!)

The Hope(ful) beat is best described as a small stream, which I love.

It had a little colour which was off putting, but that turned out to be no more than the sunny reflection from a silty bed and coloured stones. I was grateful that wading was easy, with no stick required.

 

It twists and turns often, and mostly covered by a canopy of alder, through meadow, and a few feet lower than said meadow. Muddied banks revealed boot sole prints and dog paws galore which meant the best place to seek my quarry was in the more remote corners. Streamy ranunculus clumps, faster riffles and deeper pools, suggested ‘trouty’ to me, but in the heat of the early afternoon sun, no fish were showing although there was a hint of a hatch of small olives and a few caddis.

Early casting was speculative until reaching a wider piece of water where in the back eddy opposite,

a foolish fish showed himself with a sipping rise. A few casts later he was in my net!

At about 4pm, I arrived at a short glide,

where three fish were rising to a short hatch of mayfly. It always excites when even the smallest fish fool us (me) into believing there is monster in there with a massive and splashy rise to engulf a flittering may!

One came to my net, close to this clump of balsam.

Beware – some ‘bashing’ will be needed quite soon to arrest the spread of this nasty stuff.

My impression of this stream is that WAA members have still to discover it, and I urge the flyfishing community within it, to give it a go. But polish up on your roll casting before you do.

I would love to know what size of specimens it contains and it was suggested to me that there are some good fish there, although my couple were quite modest…however, Flint is now mine!

 

ps…to WAA membership who happen to read this – does anyone know of flowing water (river, stream or brook) inside the county boundary of Merseyside, where I might find a trout. This is the only one of England’s 46 counties where I have still to net one!

(see https://afishermansjourney.com/)