What a long winter. Looking forward to tomorrow evening on the Teifi where I'll be casting my first fly of the season.
A friend who lives a few miles further up the Cych valley from me saw his first sewin in the trib two weeks ago and there are a few salmon around so fingers crossed.
Not the most comfortable time of year for a night out and I don't suppose I'll be in the river for long but it's great just to be able to get out again.

Good luck to you if you're out and about for the opening day, pob hwyl!

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Good on you Colin

I'll be doing much the same down on the Towy on Friday night and regardless how quiet it is, I'm still really looking forward to holding a rod and retrieving a line in moving water for the first time in months.

And here's one of the other things which I'm looking forwards to: when the sewin season begins it suddenly transforms your interest in the daylight hours and the weather. All of a sudden you have a keen interest in cloud cover, wind and rain, what time it's going to get dark tonight, seeing the first bats of the evening swooping between the trees and so on.

Tomorrow night I'll be playing with the kids, then getting all my tackle in the car, having dinner with them whilst being completely distracted by the daylight diminishing outside, getting them in the bath and then probably making my apologies to the good lady before slipping out into the dusk with a disproportionate amount of excitement. And I'll probably only be there for an hour or two and probably won't see or hear a thing moving in the river. But right now, that doesn't really matter...

Good luck to all who're doing the same and hopefully one of us strikes silver soon.

Bri

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Spent last night fannying around with reels and stuff whilst the wind blew itself out (well, almost).
today with the sun shining, I got out for a few hours in the afternoon.
After a couple of nice wee brownies, lo and behold look what bit the fly:




I guess something around 2lbs but in the middle of the day on an allys shrimp, I couldn't be happier with my start to the season.
Will ofcourse be down again tomorrow.

Bri

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Apart from a week on the Wynion last year which turned out to be a bit early (only two small sewin) I've done most of my seatrout fishing in Scotland. Just wondered in light of the fish on the Ally's, if you Welshmen find long tailed/long winged flies effective?

That's a nice fish Bri,

Love the photos, but not the Loop Rod Handle! Hex shaped and composite cork. How does it feel in the hand?

Really nice fish though; and unexpected, it's always so nice when that happens!

Hope Colin has a similar experience today!

Regards

Mostyn

Mostyn

I want to keep the rod handle as is because I think it'll be an oddity in tackle history and not catch on. But I'd rather have the traditional comfortable old feel of my other rods.
My mind isn't made up as yet, but I totally get where you're coming from.

Incidentally, the rod itself is a beauty and can single handed cast or spey cast in a way which is suprising as being good at one usually is mutually exclusive to being good at the other.

Bri

---------- Post added at 08:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:46 PM ----------

Cravencast, I'm not really sure - I picked the fly more on the colour of the water and time of the year for salmon than anything else.
I have to confess to being a reasonably unscientific angler and typically just follow my gut (which isn't always a good thing...)

Bri

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Naw,
thats the ability of the user!
some rods can do both with ease.
as long as the guy on end can do same.
as per mostyn, i too am intriqued at the feel of handle on rod.
just looks as if would be all wrong.
but as you say, if can cast perfectly, perhaps is all right!
The fish is gorgeous.
well done.
regards
bert

Cracking start there Bri and slightly more auspicious than my first fish of the season, a foul hooked salmon smolt.

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