The Glaslyn and the Magic Minnow

Yesterday I managed to get a ticket to fish the Afon Glaslyn, but not knowing it that well I messaged my friend Will Hollinshead who knows some of the stretches reasonably well.

Will is a very keen angler and was thankfully willing to meet. We arranged to meet at 6:30am and headed along to a stretch Will is particularly familiar with.

I had no real expectations of catching as I recognise it is still early in the year and the weather has been reasonably unsettled albeit constantly windy.

The first thing that is very noticeable about the lower Glaslyn is that the pools are very deep and I found it hard to get down to where I figured the fish might intercept my lure with the usual DUO Spearhead Ryuki's, thankfully I had an ace in my hand; my last Supremo Baila.

These small lures by Supremo are just excellent, they are heavy, dense and have a strange but innovative double lip system that really seems to work. They not only sink fast but give some tight vibrations in the water.

Casting upstream and allowing the lure to drift and sink to nearly cross current and then make the retrieve seemed to work well and with this method I had three small Sewin.

We worked our way upstream and had some knocks and follows but the fishing was slow and the follows were mainly off of small fish like those above. I felt kind of bad as I was catching and Will wasn't, he was having a bit of a tough time with losing a few lures too. We all have our times when it just doesn't seem to come together though and its just part of angling. 

It also soon became clear that my luck was down to the rather brilliant Baila which soon became known as a "magic minnow", especially when I had another two Browns landed and two Sea Trout shake the hook.

After working that stretch we headed down to the lowest part of the Association water by the Cob, we had hoped we might get some shelter from the wind but, it was very apparent we were wrong! I also felt that we were on the wrong bank as casting was limiting and landing fish would have been challenging.

I suggested to Will that we should take a look at a stretch near Prenteg; I used to live there and often saw some massive fish leaving the water in late Summer and felt that it would be a good option for Will to explore being a season ticket holder.

Trouble was the sun was very high by now and far from ideal fishing conditions, nevertheless we gave it a stab.

Real anglers never quit!

The stretch wasn't really producing and again I had the only fish. Even so it's a stunning location with a stunning backdrop of Snowdon and the Moelwyns, far better to be there on a day like today than in so many places.

Mount snowdon/Yr Wyddfa from the Glaslyn bridge.

My last fish was again small and fell to the Zipbaits Rigge Flat.

Tired and hungry we called it a day.

I must say I immensely enjoyed the session and shall endeavour to get on the Glaslyn again soon.

A big thanks to my friend Will for keeping me company and guiding me for the first part and to Criccieth Tackle Box for my Zipbaits Rigge.

Tight Lines.