Dear Member

Once again it is time for me to give you a brief outline of the Associations activities over the last twelve months, I hope you find the following items of interest.

Firstly, congratulations to our honorary Treasurer Tony Rees, on being awarded the M.B.E. for his services to angling and the environment. Tony has dedicated many years to the promotional and administrative side of angling, his enthusiasm and drive has to be admired not only has he served our Association with distinction but also sits on 9 fishery groups throughout Wales representing the interests of Game, Coarse and Sea Anglers. It would take the space content of a book to list all that he has achieved on our behalf but I know Tony being the modest man he is would probably be slightly embarrassed if I did, but I cannot think of a more worthy person deserving of this prodigious award.

Please note! Membership of the Association will be by post only, see the Treasurers report for details. Most of the Officers and Committee were re-elected for a further 12 months with the following changes. Mr George Morgan stands down as Vice Chairman, thanks go to him for his excellent contribution to the Association, he now joins the back benches of the committee along with new committee members: Phillip Jehu, Mark Williams, Dillwyn Sims and Steven Charleston. Your new Vice Chairman is Mr. Ian Cathrew.

The members present endorsed a committee recommendation that there would be no increase in permit fees for the coming season. Day permits will also remain unchanged.

All O.A.P. members who currently pay membership fees and those persons who become O.A.P. members in the future will pay an annual membership fee at the same rate that is applicable to Junior members in the 11 – 16 years age group as along as they remain members. Members who currently receive free permits will continue to do so for as long as they remain members.

Following observations received from the Environment Agency Fisheries Officers that anglers on our stretches of the River Usk were using bunches of worms with heavy lines and large hooks purporting to fish for trout when actually fishing for Salmon, in view of this in future the maximum strength of line permissible when Trout fishing with worm shall be 4lb breaking strain and the largest permitted hook size shall be number 10. The use of keepnets on pegs 41 to 46 on the grass bank area of Cyfarthfa lake will no longer be allowed other than on Bona Fide Association competitions. During the last few seasons it has become more and more apparent to bailiffs that anglers are ignoring the spirit of the rule recommended to the effect that they should be properly equipped when fishing especially for the landing and unhooking of larger fish. When the rule book is re-printed for the coming year, it will specifically state that angers must e in possession of such things as large landing nets minimum size 30", unhooking mats, wire cutters, long handled pliers, forceps etc.

For the past Thirty Five years since I have been Treasurer licences have been issued to members through a variety of methods: licence issuing nights, by post, and through distributors. In the main the distributors have been committee members making available their homes to serve the members. In recent years more and more members have been applying by post, and there is no prospect in the future of new distributors coming forward and being prepared to issue licences from home. This duty can be any time from 8am to 10pm. The decision has been taken after a trial run in 2005 to go over to a full postal system for the issue of licences. Enclosed with this newsletter is a prepaid envelope for you so send back to the Treasurer with your completed application form together with a stamp. You can send a cheque or Postal orders and depending on the post your licence will be sent back by return of post. For information, prepaid envelopes and application forms will also be available for convenience from the present Distributors Nigel Morgan, George Morgan, Ron Jones, Quakers Yard Stores, and Merthyr Angling Centre Cefn Coed. We hope to start issuing licences in early January. New rule books and maps of waters will be available to all.

The decision has been taken to change the lock on the Neuadd gate and Pontsticill Reservoir barrier. The style of lock will remain the same and new keys will be exchange for the old keys free of charge to members when they re-join the Association in 2006. This will mean sending your old key back with your application form when applying for your licence.

As it was unlikely that our Planning Application for the Pontygwaith Park Project would have been approved it was withdrawn following advice form our consultants. This will ensure that our new application is considered by the lay planning committee who may well look more favourably at the application than employed Technical Officers who were expressing concerns about vehicle access from the main road to the site.

The possibility of recreating Bryn Cae Own Pond in Cyfarthfa Park is still ongoing, a Feasibility Study has been completed and Merthyr Council have promised full support, the Feasibility was funded with grant aid from the 3G’s Group supported by the Environment Agency.

The formation of a nature reserve on land in our ownership in the Edwardsville area has been completed. The work was financed by grant aid from Cyd Coed Cymru and carried out by Merthyr and Cynon Groundwork Trust.

The duelling of the A465 Heads of the Valley’s Road has commenced in the Abergavenny area; this will cause some disruption to members fishing the Ysbytty section of the Usk near the road bridge. The extent of the disruption is unknown and will be ad-hoc. In the short term for anglers who wish to fish above the bridge they may park at the Ysbytty Farm. Would members fishing here compile data of dates and times if you experience any disruption and inform us, this may assist us in any compensation claims we may need to make. The ACA are working on our behalf.

The Association restocked 4,600 12" to 14" brown trout into the River Taff, Lower Taf Fechan and Upper Neaudd Reservoir. Several hundred bream, roach and perch were transferred from Ponsticill/Dolygaer Reservoir to Cyfarthfa Lake, this was needed because we were unable to purchase fish of sufficient size and quality needed to give an instant uplift to sport. The latest electro fishing survey undertaken by the Environment Agency on waters improved by the Taf Fechan Project show a significant increase in the numbers of fish present in most categories.

The Association was involved with 6 schools in the Merthyr Borough alone with the Environment Agency for the Salmon Home Coming Project. The Association has supplied the tanks and associated equipment to enable the pupils in the school to hatch salmon eggs that were eventually stocked back in the River Taff by the participating schools. The salmon eggs the children hatched were from salmon caught by the Environment Agency on the Taff Catchment. The schools successfully reared the eggs they were given, the alevins hatched and were taken to the fish hatchery in Cynrig when the schools visited the hatchery the children bought the salmon parr back with them where they were released into the River Taff.

The last salmon nets on the Usk estuary have now been removed and in the long term this should result in improved runs of migratory fish. The Association contributed to the finance necessary in achieving this objective.

During the year there have been a number of fish thefts from Association waters, these are in addition to the usual loss of trout taken by poachers. The new type of theft relates to coarse fish which are either taken away alive to be stocked in other waters or for the table, with the latter becoming an increasing problem. For example, members of a foreign circus at Cyfarthfa Park were caught killing fish on the Park Lake; this was reported to the Parks Manager who took action. Also pike and other fish are known to have been killed at Pontsticill/Dolygaer. There are more and more non British Europeans coming to live in this area and it is in their lifestyle to eat mainly coarse fish - this is a growing problem that will be difficult to combat, if you see anyone killing coarse fish contact committee men or ring the agency number 0800 607080 and report it, the more reports they receive the more likely they are to treat this matter seriously.

A taster day was held on Middle Pond during June to invite people who had never fished before to come along and have a go. Coaches from the Association were on hand to help, Bernard Farr our Junior Competition Secretary organised all the fishing for the 60 anglers who took part, the Dowlias Forum organised the tent and barbeque, and Penywern Association have organised a small booklet on the event which should be published soon. Thanks should also be given to the Environment Agency for supporting the event with the loan of their marquee and the rod licence for the day.

I am afraid that salmon fishing on the Associations beats of the River Usk has again been dominated by low water conditions. Drought has hit the river for more than 3 months and despite some fish in the pools angling has been disappointing. However, it was late September that any significant rain came and even then it produced only a couple of spates that bought the river up to a reasonable fishing height, consequently salmon catches were low. As we entered October conditions improved slightly, this allowed fish to run the Usk system in sufficient numbers to provide conditions suitable to give the frustrated anglers something to go for, although most of the fish caught were coloured. At the time of writing there appears to have been quite a reasonable number of salmon throughout the Usk system. Lets hope that we retain sufficient water levels to enable them to reach their spawning tributaries.

The total salmon caught on all our Usk waters for 2005 was 22 of these 8 were returned (36.3%), there were also 7 sea trout caught. The total weight of fish caught was 197.14lbs which returned an average fish of 6.8lbs. Two people caught fish which were 13lbs 8oz these were the heaviest fish on our waters and were caught by Mr. T. Evans and Mr. S. Lloyd. The total fish caught on the fly was 7, and the total fish caught by spinning was 22 by far the most popular method of catching salmon.

The River Taff season opened with good water levels and some excellent fishing was enjoyed many fish caught on worm and the usual early season fly patterns took fish. Then by mid-May the rains dried up and the river shrank to very low levels through much of the summer and fishing become much more difficult. Unfortunately this is a trend than has become more common in recent years. Periods of rain through September did improve matters somewhat and fishing improved at the later part of the season. Some notable catches during the season were made by Adam Toomey, Matthew Quinlan, Daniel Lewis, Shane McCarthy and David Cross who all caught brown trout of over 2lbs. Successful fly patterns for the river included the Water hen Bloa, Sherry Spinner, Lunns Particular, Pheasant Tail, and during the low water conditions the Griffiths Gnat.

The River Usk like the Taff a good early season when good hatches of flies generated some very exciting surface activity and the fish responded well but, unfortunately the difficult fishing conditions through the summer meant that fishing very late in the evening was the only option available to the angler. One method that does work well on both rivers late in the evening is to fish a dry sedge pattern or a muddler minnow pattern and to impart some movement to the fly to create a wake. Takes to this tactic can be very violent indeed and it is recommended that nylon of at least 6lb b.s. is used. Some notable catches reported from Geraint John, David Matthews, Mark Williams, Keith Jones, Ron Jones who all on several occasions caught fish exceeding the 2lb mark, with Phillip Jehu who caught and returned a 3lbs 9oz brown trout caught on a mayfly at Kemeys.

This reservoir fished extremely well for most of the season with most anglers catching trout. Again most of the fish caught were stockfish although there were sufficient wild fish caught in the 12oz to 1lb range. The most successful flies used were the Black and Peacock Spider, Olive Nymphs, Bibio and a variety of buzzer patterns mostly fished on floating or intermediate lines. Bernard and David Farr, Wynford Rees, Brian Powles, Geoff Evans were some of the regular fishermen at this reservoir who did very well and kept us informed of the quality of fishing there (many thanks). A new lock will be fitted to the barrier this coming season please see Treasurers Report on how to exchange your key.

In contrast to the Neaudd this reservoir proved very difficult for most of the season even in the normally more prolific months of June, July, August. It may have been the low water levels and rapid weed growth combined that mead fishing conditions unsuitable. Also members reported regular occurring algae bloom. However, there were some good fishing conditions particularly early in the season when the fish were in an obliging mood. Bernard Farr, Julian Burns, Mark Williams and Gavin and Phillip Jehu reported fish ranging from 12oz to 4lbs and several over 2lb. The all landed fish on a Black and Peacock Spider, which seem to be the fly fishing pattern of the moment.

Senior Winners were: Mark Thomas (3); Mark Jones (2); A Stevens, Gareth Harvey and Mark Williams one each. Senior aggregate bag winner is Mark Thomas

Junior Winners were: Adam Toomey (3), Phillip Jehu (3) and S. Matthews, Thomas Phillips one each. Junior Aggregate bag winner is Adam Toomey.

Biggest Fish Lake Competition 2lbs 10oz Mark Williams.

Biggest Fish River Competition 1lbs 15oz Mark Thomas

Best fish of the Season Phillip Jehu 3lb 9oz Brown Trout

Junior Fly tying Winner Phillip Jehu.

Cyfarthfa Lake: At present this lake has a close season the Association has made representations to the local authority to bring it in line with our other coarse fisheries which allows fishing all year round. The response from the Local Authority seems positive, we will keep you informed of any change. From the reports I received it appears that this lake fished extremely well throughout most of the season with good bags of mixed fish being caught with regularity, the quality and the size of the fish is improving with every season. The following gives a brief account of some of the catches at the lake: Sean Wojnarowicz caught 10 carp to 11lbs in weight, Luke James landed 3 carp to 6lbs, Matthew Rolls and Matthew Thomas caught good nets of crucian carp, roach perch and tench. Dan Jones fished most days whilst recovering form an operation on his leg and caught good quantities of mixed fish, Blain Webber aged 11 broke his personal record wit a 14lb 2oz common carp, Dominic Walters landed a 16lb mirror carp and a 17lb 6 oz leather carp on the same day.

This pond has recorded some excellent catches the best for may years although the perch, tench, roach fishing was good the carp fishing was spectacular with anglers regularly landing good quality fish. The following shows how good it really was: Phillip Fear has really worked out how to catch the carp landing 18 that included a 14lb mirror carp a 17lb leather carp and an 18lb 7oz common carp, Phillip also landed another 14 all over 10lbs. On another occasion on a Saturday in June with a stiff breeze and heavy rain Brent Parry landed 33 carp to 15lb 8oz, Phillip Fear landed 20 carp to 13lbs, Steve Jacobs landed 20 carp to 11lbs and Dominic Walters landed 30 carp to 13lbs. Brent said it was the most frantic and tremendous days fishing any of them had experienced with 100 carp landed in 24 hours. You do not need to fish far out! Ask Dave Keen who fishes with a centrepin reel he caught 92 carp last season. Others who reported good fishing were George Jones, Gwynfor Jeffs, Mark Jones, Kevin Driscoll and Justin Watkins. Dave Prowse likes to fish for carp with a fly rod, he had some success landing 2 carp of 5lb and 10lb on a floating dog biscuit. He later returned armed with a fly of his own design that looked like a dog biscuit and landed 7 carp between 5lb and 10lb then returned a few days later to land another 10 carp.

Our Junior reporter Richard Powelll reports that this pond has also fished well, Richard himself has experienced some excellent days along with the following anglers: Greg Kendall 14 carp between 6 and 13lbs, Sam Phillips landed 7 carp to 11lbs, Stephen Clarke 3 carp to 11lbs, Daniel Howe and Marcus Mills along with Michael Giles had 96 fish between them mostly roach and gudgeon. Neil Morgan caught bream to 5lbs other who reported good mixed bags of fish were Lloyd Hopkins, Jonathan Collins, Dean Roberts and Rees Sullivan. Best baits for the smaller fish were maggot and castor with pellets, boilies and sweetcorn accounting for the larger specimens.

Anglers who regularly fish these reservoirs are now finding the most productive areas and at time are catching perch, roach, pike, carp and bream in good numbers. Particularly bream with good size individual specimens, pre baiting generally helps, but is not essential. Some of the notable catches included Andy Whittock who landed 23 bream heaviest 9lbs. He also landed a carp of 14lbs 5oz, andy also caught over 150lbs of bream along with pike of 12lbs, 14lbs, 17lbs 1oz and a 29lb+. Jeff Richards who regularly fishes this venue has had good nets of perch, roach and skimmer bream, but during August after heavy rain the Dolygaer reservoir was brown from the soil run off from the streams which is perfect bream conditions and Jeff caught 6 bream all over 10lbs and all caught within ½hour of him making his 1^st cast. He ended up with a net of bream in excess of 150lbs. Paul Johnson landed a net of 200lbs of skimmer bream and bream to 8½lbs. Mark Jones fished Dolygaer and caught quite a few bream, he had one bite which he thought was a big bream, it put up a slow hard fight but gradually Mark reeled it towards him, after 1½hrs of playing the fish on 4lb reel line, 2lbs hook length and a size 16 hook he eventually landed a 26lb 3oz pike! Laurence Darcy who was fishing a chocolate boilie for carp had a shock, he did not catch the expected carp but landed a pike of 21lbs. Paul Daniels caught a 23lb 8oz pike from Dolygaer, also at Dolygaer Brent Parry landed a magnificent 31lb 13oz carp WHAT A FISH!

This year I took over the reins of Competition Secretary from David "Pastie" Matthews, what a hard act to follow. David is now off the Prozac and in his spare time can be seen tormenting anglers from across the border at Phocle Far. David is not the only Merthyr Member who has ventured onto the open circuit this year with Graham Davies, Brian Prothero, and Jason Gillespie all doing well at Midland venues, but Peter "Paddy" Payne deserves a special mention for his win at Stafford Moor in Devon whilst on holiday there with Graham, Brian and myself.

Before moving onto this years club results, I must also congratulate the team who represented Merthyr Tydfil A.A. at the Welsh Federation Team Championships fished at Port Talbot Docks. Up against Welsh team members, World Champions and heavily sponsored teams they came a commendable third. Those anglers were: Graham Davies, David Matthews, Terry Jones, Jason Gillespie, Ian Cathrew and Paul Lewis, well done lads.

This season has seen some excellent results with seven anglers catching over 100lbs each during one match at Staunton Court. Brian Prothero catching over 70lbs of fish at Holgan Farm using…(sorry he won’t let me tell you what it is, but they don’t call him King Edward for nothing), Terry Jones managed to catch exactly 100lbs at Redhill, our first ever match at that venue and Paul Lewis set a new record on Middle Pond with 43lbs. I have been encouraged to see a few new faces fishing these matches and hopefully they will continue and bring more with them. At the time of writing we have just fished our last fixture at Holgan Farm. Going in to the match Terry Jones was just two points behind Gary Miles in the Club Championship but being pegged next to the Comp Sec and the pressure got to Terry and Garry finished in second place on the day to win by six points, Terry was second with myself creeping into third place with two wins in the last two matches This years competition winners were Terry Jones with 5, Gary Miles and myself with 3, Jason Gillespie, Brian Prothero and Graham Davies with 2 each and Paul Lewis, David Matthews, Craig Morgan and Steve Crowley one each. Next years fixture list sees a good variety of venues most within 45 minutes drive, hopefully this will encourage more participants.

Well, yet another successful year with junior matches averaging 32 juniors per match. We have now got quite a few female anglers taking part in matches and quite often they beat the boys. The away trip to White Springs was a great success with Patricia Pinch cooking, only 2 members died (only joking), Patricia did the BBQ very professionally. A big thanks to all our sponsors on the day, for supplying all the food and drinks. The winners for 2005 are:

Over 12’s Under 12’s

Christopher Sullivan 2 David Jones 4

David Atherton 2 Anya Earp 2

Thomas Morgan 1 Rhys Evans 1

Thomas Morgan 1

Gareth Watkins 1

Phillip Jehu 1

Over 12’s Club Champion for 2005 is Phillip Jehu. The under 12’s was very close with it being down to the last match and with a record of 2 wind and 5 seconds Anya Earp just piped Daniel Jones for the under 12’s club champion for 2005. Well done Anya one for the girls again. The most improved angler for 2005 will be announced on presentation night. Well done to all the anglers who fished the matches and a big thank you to all who helped to run them, without you it wouldn’t have been the success it was. See you all on presentation night or at next year’s matches. Bernard

A pollution incident occurred on a small feeder stream in Troedyrhiw in late May, a lot of small trout, minnows and sticklebacks were killed but fortunately no dead fish were found in the main River Taff. The Environment Agency investigated but tests proved inconclusive. The only serves to highlight how important it is to report all pollution incidents immediately by using the 0800 807060 freephone number or contacting our pollution officer Ron Jones on 01443 693117 or any committee member. Ron would like to thank all those members who did contact him in the past year reporting potential pollution incidents; these reports could well prevent a major incident developing. Good news from the Pontsticill filter works it seems that the new pumping system promised which transfers the backwash water back into the filter works and not into the River Taf Fechan is now being installed, fingers crossed!!!

The committee are concerned with the number of members fishing on the Usk waters without pre-booking and consequently not making returns of catches. In the long run it is in everyone’s interest to follow rules as it has the effect of increasing the assets of the Association and helping with the value of any compensation claims we may need to make. Complaints have been received from Cyfarthfa Park that anglers are parking in the disabled areas at the end of the lake when they have no blue badge. Failure to observe the restrictions could result in the clamping of unauthorised vehicles. Unfortunately the Association has found it necessary to ban, without time limit, two student members for many transgressions of the rules, most particularly creating large amounts of litter and fishing whilst serving an existing one-year ban. Litter is still a problem at a number of locations and severe action will be taken against the culprits. Would anglers please display their windscreen stickers on the dash board (if you do not want to permanently display it), especially at Top and Middle Ponds, River Usk Beats and Upper Neaudd, this is to assist our team of bailiffs to identify the legal angler.

The Association presentation night will take place on Wednesday 8^th February 2006 at the Merthyr Tydfil Ex-Servicemen’s Club starting at 7.30pm sharp. There will be a buffet provided and as usual there will be not cost, all are welcome.

I would like to conclude this newsletter by wishing you all, on behalf of myself and the Officers and Committee of the Association a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Tight lines

Nigel Morgan