Does anyone know if fishing is permitted on these waters and if so where do you get a permit from? Same question for Llyn Brianne Reservoir as a google search doesn't seem to bring anything up.

Fishing on Llyn Brianne has always been prohibited and still is. Fishing on the two Fans used to be allowed but I now believe that it is prohibited. Ask the question on Gethyn's sea trout forum and you will get a definitive answer. In the meantime think No.

Thanks for the info. Shame that as I'd love to have combined a days walking with fishing at both the Fans and I'm sure Llyn Brianne would hold some good fish.

There are very good fish in there. Ask the boys from Tregaron!

Whats the idea behind not making it available to fish? Surely it would add income to Welsh Water?

It's ridiculous but it was one of the conditions necessary for permission to place a dam there in the first place i.e. the area was not be used for non-traditional recreational purposes in order to maintain some of its integrity. Now whilst this may be true for pleasure boats and the like, the fact that folk such as my father and I had been fishing the upper river for decades, meant that fishing was an established activity. Nevertheless it was all lumped in together under the precondition that the water was not to be used for recreational purposes. Apart from giving water to Swansea etc, it's a dead resource.

Hmmm, not well thought through that one. Shame as it would also have brought in more money for the local economy too, not to mention the loss of a potentially great fishery.

Agreed, but at present it is the preserve of a very select few! Unofficially, of course.

I suppose you could worm fish from the trees if you were that way inclined but I'd have loved to have had a go at fly fishing there (legally preferably of course).

Yes, I agree, it would be nice to drift in a boat across that reservoir, casting traditional Welsh Llyn flies to those huge brownies. I wonder if anyone is doing that? Hmm, you can be sure they are. I hope so anyway. Such a ridiculous waste for such a huge expanse of water.

Brianne is full of very large "not allowed to fish for them brown trout" which just makes everything even worse, given the paucity of wild brown trout life in the rest of the Towy, below the dam.

After the building of the the dam - relative to the 1950's when the upper river was full of excellent brown trout of an average of one and a half pounds caught by the likes of me - trout size and frequency per cubic foot of water just fell away. The fish that I caught were truly wild, full finned fish. In those days, a wild brown Towy trout of over a pound was a wonderful fish. These days, what you get are a small escaped stockies or slob trout or thin small brownies.

My main poiint is, that regardless of what you can do with the Llyn Brianne dam, things were much better without it - except of course for the water supply to Swansea. Some may find the lake is beautiful but to me it is more Canada than Wales and it never has felt right. In fact it is disgusting with the huge all encompassing water expanse drowning the real valleys and water courses that were there before it.

The upper Towy valley, before the dam was built (late 50s early 60s) , was a place to see the red squirrel, the pine marten, the red fox, the peregrine, the red kite, the summer shepherd, the large resident wild brownies and the late ruddy migratory sewin and salmon. I was so lucky, but as a callow youth, I never realised what I had at my fingertips and I just took it for granted. I thought everything would always be so for ever. I was so wrong but at least I had the huge privilege of just being there - Upper Towy - Bwlch y Ffin, Ystrad Ffin, Soar ar y Mynydd, 1958-60.

The head of the Towy valley, my father and me - now gone for ever.

Some of it is still available however. There is great water up there below the dam, late season. Wanna catch salmon? Go to the upper Llandovery AA waters from August on. Take worms and learn the river.