For the past few years, the good folk of The Hoylake Flyfishers Club have invited me to one of their summer meetings and it has been my pleasure to hold a casting clinic on the field after the official club business has been dealt with.

 

Sadly, this years event fell foul of the June weather and whilst a few diehards did eventually venture out into the torrential rain, the bulk of the evening was devoted to a fly fishing Q&A session.

During the official business though, there was an exciting announcement. The club had acquired some new water! Hoylake now have access to a short stretch of the river Alwen in Llanfihangel near Corwen AND it runs past a pub!

Fellow Hoylake member Ron immediately suggested we go and check it out. He was met with little resistance.

 

On arrival, this tributary of the currently swollen river Dee was up and slightly coloured but it looked fishy. It was quite a short stretch but our plan to explore every inch of it paid dividends.

We had dozens of fin perfect, vividly marked little Brownies and there were a couple of brutes too!

A welcome sun, a cooling breeze, a pub lunch and lots of ‘freshly minted’ Wild Brown Trout. Considering today was the longest day of the year, it passed very quickly.