Coarse and Game Fishing in Pembrokeshire

Away from the coast, Pembrokeshire is farmland, wooded valleys and two rivers that meet in a tidal estuary. It is quiet fishing, not famous fishing, which is much of the appeal.

The Eastern and Western Cleddau rise in the Preselis and the north of the county and run down to join in the Daugleddau above Lawrenny. Both hold brown trout, and both get runs of sewin — sea trout — which are fished for at night in summer by people who have been doing it for thirty years and are not going to tell you where. Salmon numbers on Welsh rivers have declined badly and are subject to strict conservation rules, so check the current byelaws for what you may fish for and what must go back; catch-and-release requirements change.

The Teifi forms the county's northern boundary through Cilgerran and down to St Dogmaels, and it is one of the better sewin rivers in Wales. Cilgerran is also where coracles are still built and raced, which tells you how long people have been taking fish out of that water.

Llys-y-frân reservoir, under the western end of the Preselis near Maenclochog and Rosebush, is the county's main stillwater. It is stocked, it has a proper visitor centre with a café and a path right round the water, and it is the easiest place in Pembrokeshire to have a first go at fly fishing without joining anything. There are smaller commercial coarse fisheries scattered around Narberth and Haverfordwest too, stocked with carp, tench and roach, and those are the right places to take a child.

A day looks different depending on which you choose. Stillwater trout means a bank, a floating line, and a lot of watching. River fly fishing on the Cleddau means walking, wading and reading water, usually in dappled shade with alders in your backcast. Sewin fishing means being on the river from dusk into the small hours, which is either magical or a long cold night, sometimes both.

The season runs broadly March to October for game fishing, with local variation, and much of the year for coarse. Sewin come in from May, with June and July the peak. Rain matters more than sunshine — a river in low summer flow fishes badly and a river dropping back after a spate fishes very well indeed.

What catches people out: the paperwork. You need a rod licence and you need permission for the specific water, and one does not substitute for the other. Sort both before you travel. The second is water level — Pembrokeshire rivers are short and flashy, so they colour up and drop again quickly, and the fishing swings with them.

The third is expectation. This is not a destination fishery with guaranteed numbers. It is a place where you can spend a morning on a small river in a wooded valley with a heron for company and nobody else within a mile, and catch three modest brown trout. If that sounds like a good morning, you will get on here.