Welsh angler Lyn Davies's spring 2026 trip to the River Towy - the Tywi - just outside Llandeilo is the kind of single-rod, single-river fly-fishing piece that the channel has built its audience on.
The Towy's reputation rests on the sea-run brown trout that fill its lower reaches each season - the Sewin. Davies, however, is on the river for the resident wild browns.
"The Towy is most famous for its sea trout, known locally as Sewin, but it also offers some fantastic wild brown trout fishing," he says.
He rigs one rod for the day. A 10-foot, four-weight that handles dry flies, swung spiders or, at a push, a French leader. He chooses a duo - a small, natural nymph under a buoyant fly - to search the water.
"Just over a 2-ft drop shot to it. Let's choose a nymph. Something small, natural looking," he says. "There we go. The duo. Little bit of Mucilin on my fly line. Not too much. Just enough to keep that line floating high."
A cross-river south-easterly wind cuts the morning's casts in half.
"I'm not loving this southeasterly wind," Davies says. "Oh, well. It is what it is."
"Stone Pool. Wow. This has changed," he says. "That shingle bank never used to be there. Never ceases to amaze me just how much a river changes over time."
The rises start when the Grannom finally emerge - the small dark sedge that drives spring rises on a river like this. Davies switches to a single olive emerger to ambush the splashy takes.
"Just seen a rise. And again. I think these fish are taking the emerging Grannom," he says. "My trusty olive emerger might do the trick. Right. See if we can ambush these fish."
He wades to within reach of two visible fish on the far bank, has to back off, and admits the morning has gone the wrong way.
"It's not happening, guys," he says. "At least we've seen some fish moving. So that's a good sign."
The afternoon shifts the day. The wind drops. A first cast on a new pool produces a small fish that takes too aggressively for its size.
"First cast," he says. "I think you've bitten off more than you can chew there, fella. Go on, you little rascal, you."
The fish that defines the trip comes a few casts later, on water Davies has clearly been reading carefully.
"That's a better cast. Right, here we go. Here we go," he says as the line lifts. "Now then, that feels better. That's a better fish. Oh, that was a cracking take. I had a feeling we'd have him. Come on, boyo. In you come. Great stuff. What a smashing fish to end the day."
"Another fabulous day on the river. Tired, but happy," Davies says.
For the audience that follows him, that is the point. The Towy is a river that has changed, and will change again, and rewards anglers who keep coming back.
