Talybont Reservoir – The First Fishing Outing of Spring

Set in the heart of the Brecon Beacons, the shores of Talybont provided the location for the puzzling case involving the death of the lone hiker and the backfiring car, in Sherlock’s “An Affair in Belgravia.” 

The Producers chose Talybont as the setting for a suitable conundrum for Benedict Cumberbatch to ponder for one simple reason – the place is just so photogenic.

On a slightly less memorable personal note, these shores are also usually the scene of my first casts of the trout season.

If you’ve read any of my stuff, you’ll know that I’m not a big fan of reservoir trout fishing, it’s pretty much an anathema to me as it doesn’t sit well with my ethos of “wild” fishing.

But Talybont in the Spring is different. When the Winter rains have done their work and the reservoir is full, its waters lap against wooded shores with the dam wall being the only man-made intrusion. 

For me, Talybont has a golden first six weeks or so before the waters fall, and the fact that the place really is a reservoir is once again revealed. Despite the weather often being cold, an early outing can often be rewarding; it can fish very well in these opening weeks of the season.

Talybont occupies a narrow forestry clad valley, high above the village of Talybont-on-Usk. From the village you cross the Monmouth Brecon canal, hoping not to have to wait for the lifting of the drawbridge to allow the canal boats to gain passage. From there it’s a two mile winding drive up to the dam.

Talybont is a gently curving sliver of water some five miles long and half a mile wide. As you leave the dam behind you and drive south along its banks, you enter the foothills of the Beacons. Rising on your right is Twyn Du before and then Allt Lwyd, whose slopes dominate the head of the reservoir.

If you venture further and follow the River Caerfanell from where it flows into Talybont, you are led high into the hills with the three Brecon peaks of Fan y Big, Cribyn and Pen Y Fan marching ever eastwards and upwards from the river’s headwaters.

As you park your car by the roadside gate, you look across the waves to a high brooding coniferred ridge which runs along the entire length of the reservoir.

For me, my first outing to Talybont heralds the Spring. The clocks have leapt forward, lighter evenings are here, and the drabness of another wet and weary Winter can be put behind us.

So last week I headed West into what used to be marketed as Kite country, at a time when this majestic bird of prey was at its rarest and the Beacons was one of its last strongholds.

I have to admit I’m an anti-social angler, I like a place to myself, I’ll walk miles to find solitude. So as I crest the slight rise to the parking spot at the far end of Talybont, my heart ever so slightly sinks if I see even one car parked there before me.

This is a nonsense, as every other fellow MTAA (Merthyr Tydfil Angling Alliance) member I have met has always been a delight.

Last week, as so often, the place was mine alone.

This top end of the reservoir has variety and interest. You first come to a narrow inlet shaped like a crooked finger, perhaps a hundred yards in length and no more than twenty yards wide. It’s shallow and easy to ignore, but when the waters are high it is well worth carefully fishing through.

Next you come to the River Caerfanell, again only twenty yards wide and thigh high to wade and cross. The river goes on to form a channel thrusting deep into the reservoir, the edge of which is wadable for a good hundred yards. In fact, you could fish further if it wasn’t for the angry mute swans guarding their annual nesting site.

In the Spring, if you can’t move a fish here, you are going to struggle everywhere else; for me it’s a bit of a banker.

To get to the far bank of the reservoir, you now have to skirt your way round a wide bay, hampered by waist high grass tussocks. As you navigate your way through, it’s not unusual to disturb a resting snipe, sending it erupting skywards from almost under your feet.

Almost there, but you first have to slog through beds of reeds rising from the cloying, oozing, sticky mud.

It’s only a few hundred yards to cover, but the mud and the tussocks do make it a bit of a slog.

Once you’ve made it, if it’s during these first few weeks of the season, you’re likely to be rewarded by the strange sight of Talybont’s cavorting toads.

I’ve always thought of them as solitary creatures, to be found in a dark corner of the garden, but it’s not like that at Talybont in the Spring. The water’s edge is alive with females, often with a ball of writhing males attached. There are so many of them that you have to tread warily to avoid inflicting casualties.

The results of their energetic efforts can be seen in the strings of eggs that lace the shallows. Soon after this spectacle, you return perhaps a couple of week later to find these same shallows littered with dismembered decomposing bodies. I find this strange, as I can find no reference to toads dying after breeding, but this scene is repeated year after year at Talybont.

So why all the effort to get to the far side of the reservoir, when I’ve often got the whole easily accessible roadside shore available to myself?

Once again, I think the answer is solitude, I unconsciously migrate as far away from the road as possible, even though the odd passing car is obscured behind a high unkempt hawthorn hedge.

Also, I like the fishing here, it offers a bit of a challenge, you’re fishing in small gaps with trees and bushes to either side. As the water drops, you can wade in front of the trees, ever careful of not catching them with a careless cast. Also, along with the river inlet, I think it’s the best spot to catch a fish.

Talybont can be frustrating. It seems to have an annoying habit of magically evading the wind and often you struggle to even get a ripple to work your flies, but if the wind strengthens, hope awakens. 

The fishing can be testing, it seems to have only two settings, either on or off. The trout can be the most obliging or dour in the extreme.

As to the fish that inhabit Talybont, the first thing to say is that they are all wild. I would say the most common weight would be ten to twelve ounces, but you catch a lot around the pound and some much bigger. I have caught a few over two pounds, and have seen a much bigger fish leaping at close quarters.

This makes Talybont quite unusual in that you never know what size your next fish might be, and you really do stand a chance of catching something quite special.

I approach Talybont just as I would a highland loch. I don’t think you can go far wrong with a traditional approach, probably favouring something dark.

My standard cast would be a Black and Peacock Spider on the top dropper, a Kate Mclaren in the middle, and a Pearly Muddler on the point. Pennells, Butchers, Zulus and Soldier Palmers all seem to work.

I occasionally fish a dry fly, but often the trout seem to be lying a bit deeper. I know I’m too ensconced in my traditional methods, basically I fish wet or dry. I’m not a fan of buzzers, and my interrogation of depth is limited to switching between a floating and an intermediate line.

Every year I think I should experiment and hone new techniques, after all I have Talybont as my own doorstep laboratory. However, I never do, I’m just too set in my ways – perhaps this year!

This Spring’s first trip turned out to be one of the dour days, I only saw one fish and it wasn’t anywhere near my flies. But the day wasn’t wasted, there was one magical moment. As I’ve so often found, if you spend time with nature it often rewards you, and so it was today.

A bird of prey I didn’t recognise flew low down the middle of the reservoir, the best description I can give was that its pale hue made me think of a large barn owl. I had no idea what it was, but I knew it was something different.

A couple of hours later a gentleman with a camera, complete with a very large lens, made his way down the bank towards me. He had raced down from Cardiff in pursuit of a particular bird he was following on social media. I described what I had seen, and he confirmed that this was his quarry – an Osprey! Apparently it had returned from its African migration only three days earlier.

I’m guilty of whiling away my Winter evenings dreaming of the far north when I have some real gems on my doorstep.   

I live near Ross-on-Wye, and if I’m willing to venture across the border and confront the tyranny of Wales’s 20mph speed limits, I can reach the Upper Wye, the Usk and Irfon, as well as Talybont, in just over an hour.

To be able to fish for truly wild trout in the heart of the Brecon Beacons National Park, my only companions being the local wildlife, including our very own pair of Ospreys, is pretty special. We should never take these places for granted.

Oh, I almost forgot – are you still wondering how the hiker met his end? Well, it wasn’t murder.

He’d thrown a boomerang (as you do!), the backfiring car had distracted him and his boomerang hit him on the back of the head as he looked away – but I’m sure you’d already worked that out for yourself – after all it was elementary!