Promoting the Cwmtillery countryside
The way we were......The challenge of Fly Fishing
Cwmtillery lakes appears today as a place of recreation for all to enjoy, but it has not always been that way, and going back to when I was a young bloke in the fifties I think I was probably the only kid that had a legal permit for fishing the lakes. It was not considered that fly fishing was a pastime of Miners, or their kids, but rather of an eccentric type of person who wore oversize Wellingtons and hats with bits of feathers stuck in them.
I was able to obtain permission to fish because my Dad pressed an argument for me through Mr. Ron Watkins the colliery manager, and he helped me to obtain a permit, which among other things explained that the permit was for fly fishing only, and that all other means of fishing were strictly prohibited. I did not have the least idea of what fly fishing was about, but I had seen the men that fish the lake throwing what looked like a piece of string back and fore and letting it fall onto the water, and this had fired my imagination, I felt that I to could be successful at that.
Probably the least endearing feature of my personality, is my ability and single-mindedness to pursue a subject to the exclusion of everything else, and follow it to its conclusion, and that particular subject of fly fishing dropped right into my lap as the place to pour all my energies, so I too would be as proficient at throwing the length of string, and getting a fish to hook itself - just like real fishermen.
Now, at that time I had started work at Newport in the British Rail Drawing Office and travelled daily by train, and having time to spare I would go to Giles Sports shop just off Dock Street and pour over the assortment of fly fishing rods. It soon became apparent that I was about to enter the big league in regards to money, for every rod that was available was a veritable fortune to 16 year old I was convinced I would never be able to afford the luxury of a Hardy split cane on my present wage, so on this occasion I compromised myself by buying something that I did not really feel was the correct thing for me, but I had no choice. I bought a tank aerial, a 10 foot hollow high tensile steel whip aerial to become my fishing rod. I purchased it from an ex army store at the bottom end of Newport, corks to make a handle, and rings and binding cord and varnish. How could I fail? I poured more of my money into my project - a dressed silk double taper fishing line (just like the real fishermen) and a book on what to do.
Artificial flies presented a problem within itself, but thanks to my mothers sewing box and spare pieces of wool I managed to create a March Brown fly look-alike. The only trouble was that it was almost as big as a house sparrow, and would have required a large size trout to have got it into its mouth, but as I said, I am a single-minded person and I would make a fly that would be presentable to a trout. Two months later, four balls of wool and three reels of cotton, there stood before me my Frankenstein creation of the March Brown dry fly. If it did not deceive the trout into thinking it was a genuine fly it would frighten him to death and I would be the winner either way.
The big day arrived. I would go early, way before most people got up, so the only witness to my triumph would be the old black horse who lived in the field next to the St Paul's. I jumped on my bike and tried to conceal my fishing rod so no one what know my intentions, but its not an easy thing to do, as you develop a John Cleese type walk if you put it down your trouser leg, and you have great difficulty pedalling your bike. I arrived at the lakes on a typically Welsh morning the wind whistling up the valley and horizontal rain hitting my back with the ferocity, but I felt nothing, I was there, I had triumphed, it was me against nature. My primeval instincts took over as I peered through the morning gloom. My right arm drew back. The tank aerial glistened in the breaking dawn, as it probably glistened when it had faced the might of the third Reich in its glorious past. The double tapered silk line whistled as it sped through the rod rings and the mighty Frankenstein fly was winging its way to an unsuspecting trout who was probably still rubbing the sleepy out its eyes. The fly hit the water with a resounding thump and a miniature tidal wave raced towards the north bank. Then it happened, there was a flash of silver, a heart stopping tremor through this now majestic rod, and before my eyes rose a magnificent specimen of a welsh mountain trout, all of four inches in length with half my mothers cardigan clenched in its jaws I struck to set the hook, (that means that you twitch the rod to make the hook set into the trout's upper jaw) but in my excitement I struck too hard and the aerial/ come rod reverted to its vertical position, and the trout and Mams cardi left the water with the speed of a bullet, whistled past my head and ended up behind me in the stream leading to the big lake. I panicked, there was my fish escaping, it was trying to reach the safety of the big lake, but I am made of sterner stuff than that, me the boy who had scoffed at the German war machine, facing the ignominy of losing his first trout, not bloody likely, I jumped off the wall about seven feet high, ran into the stream and grasped the line. He was mine. I glanced around to see if anyone had witnessed my not so perfect Piscatorial capture. Only the old black horse stood witness, in silent testimony to my triumph, and I knew he could not, or would not tell I stuffed the fish into my bag, jumped on the bike and peddled furiously down the path along side the lake straight out into the road, narrowly missing the Jones bus coming down the hill and home to display my capture." Look Mam!" I cried" a trout". " Oh yes our Michael" she said peering over the top of her teacup, "it's very nice, but I don't how far it will go between four of us". "Oh that's o/k mam I'm not very hungry". She looked at me and in gentle voice replied "why don't we give it to Monty the cat; he probably needs it more than us eh!". I knew Mam was right, because Mothers are always right. But deep within me was spawned the love for the outdoors and the pursuing of the elusive brown trout. I acquired my Holy grail - the Hardy split cane rod, my reel and the trappings of the Fly fisherman, with the help of the lady that worked at Giles, who advised me with rod selection etc; but most of all I got lessons on the art of fishing from a gentleman called Mr. Parry who had fished the lakes for as long as I could remember. I think he was from Blaina. Someone once told me he was an ex headmaster, but I thought he was just a good bloke. . Many evenings I spent in the solitude of the top reservoir being devoured by the gnats whose behaviour I desperately tried to imitate with my artificial fly, while keeping an eye on my mortal adversary in trout fishing Stan Tilling the reservoir keeper. It's memories like those that are priceless for a Cwmtillery kid who now lives in the Australian bush, and now as his own trout stream (Big Pats Creek Warburton) at the bottom of the lane that leads to his house. As the enclosed photo shows, its small but good, with two species of fish - the ubiquitous brown trout and the native black fish, but nothing will ever compare with the sheer unbridled excitement of that cold windy morning on the wall of the little lake and my first Brown Trout.