Competition Preparation at Llyn Clywedog

I’ve written many reports on how a team or very occasionally individually the build up goes for a competition, but on this occasion and particularly with such a high profile match as The Fly Shop Invitational event being held at Clywedog here is a small insight into how we approach organising such an event!

As the fishery goes the dates are set a year in advance with invites going out in early February to relevant team captains. Once that’s sorted myself and head ranger Gaz Dixon sit down in March to plan the stocking for the season ahead taking into account the weather and angler numbers visiting the fishery as well as overall stock numbers.

Initially, we stock by slowly building up the head of fish in the lake whilst trying not to overstock which is difficult in the early season, but by late April fish are starting to show higher in the water and also spreading out around the reservoir. With Clywedog being nearly 6 miles long it takes quite some head scratching tying to ensure certain areas of the lake fish well during the busiest periods. June sees some of the heaviest stocking as we are pretty much at capacity for the whole month before we crash into the Fly Shop match and with the match attracting some of the very best anglers from around the UK and Ireland, we know that the lake will come under extreme pressure.

With the event being held in July we are always on the edge of the tipping point in water temperatures where fish move lower in the water looking for cooler temps. So with all these factors in mind we set a stock aside of around 3000 fish spread across the 6 miles of the lake, 1500 in the lower end of Bwlch y Gle and 1500 across the arms at the top end.

This year however the hot temperatures arrived earlier than normal as we experienced the hottest June on record and fish dropped down in the water in late June so with 2 weeks to go before the event we were fearful of a total sinking line match. However the weather turned with wind and rain in the 10 days before the match cooling the water by nearly 4c, this had an immediate effect bringing the trout back to the surface and fish that had been missing for a few weeks back on the feed certainly in the arms at the top end with fish running into the shallow water.

Stocking took place 5 days before the event and before any of the teams arrived giving the fish time to settle and start to feed. Another point which goes with our philosophy of openness regarding not just numbers of stocking but we also marked a map of where the most recent stocking took place along with the week before stockings that have taken place too and forwarded this to all captains to try and give everyone the same information. All to often competitions take place with just locals knowing where and when previous stockings have taken place and we genuinely want to make the competition as fair as possible so everyone can enjoy it.

Teams started to arrive on the Tuesday with some practicing for up to 4 days for the event. Teams from Ireland, Orkney Isles, Scotland, England and Wales arrived during the week and the event holds such a friendly atmosphere.

Practice went really well with fish being caught all across the lake on all methods from dries to washing line and sinking lines. We estimated that up to 1500 fish were being caught per day in practice this quickly eats into what seems like a big pre event stocking, but it seemed from a fishery point it was going well and everyone was enjoying the Clywedog experience. This year we decided that we would run the event as a total catch and release with a time taken once anglers had caught their second fish which would separate any anglers on the same number of fish.

After the first day of the competition we hold a BBQ with a few beers while we compline the results giving all the competitors a chance to mingle and chat about how the first day had gone and meet with their day 2 partner.

Its a real team effort at Clywedog with Jess managing the lodge, Ffion and her girls doing the BBQ and cakes on final day, Mark and Jake looking after the jetty side and our results guru Forgie doing the results leaving Gaz, Wayne and myself a chance to catch a few fish.

Day 2 of the match was cut short by a couple of hours due to a violent thunderstorm but not one angler complained and everyone agreed that it was the right thing to call a halt and come off the water so that everyone was safe to fish another day.

As a fishery we are very pleased with the overall performance of the lake with a record catch over the 2 days and all returned into the water.

Most successful flies for the week were the Bibio Grunter, Candy Booby with Sunburst Straggel Throat, Jungle Cock Black Red Holographic Cormorant, Black Micro UV Cormorant Booby, Jungle Cock Red Holographic Black Straggle UV Cormorant and the Black UV Jungle Cock Cormorant.

Now we are just about to start the planning for 2024 Fly Shop Invitational!!