Welcome to
Rhyl and St Asaph Angling Association
Game fishing in North Wales for Sea Trout,
Wild Brown Trout, Salmon, Rainbow Trout and Grayling
2025 MEMBERSHIPS are now available in all categories.
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Membership of our Association offers a wide variety of game fishing opportunities with exclusive access to some of the best local river beats, a stocked member's lake, 10 rods allocated every week for Llyn Brenig / Alwen / Aled Uchaf, and a 2 rod share on the Welsh Dee.
NEW MEMBERSHIP CATEGORIES
Full 12 month adult membership is £175
(Following years at discounted rate)
Young Adult (16-21) membership is £30
Lake Only membership is £100
Junior membership is free (£10 one-off admin fee)
Join online by clicking the link HERE
or ring Membership Sec. Colin on 07934 669794
MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS
Adult renewal for 2025 is £160
Young Adult renewal £30
Lake Only renewal £100
Junior renewal FREE - but email Colin to renew
Renew online HERE
A brief synopsis of our 2024 fishing season:-
Starting with the still waters, it was true that 2023 wasn't the best year at Llyn Brenig. Following the drought in 2022 many of the weed beds completely dried out, with the loss of much fly life. This definitely had an impact on the fishing, and Jack Finney one of the Brenig fish farmers agreed. But what a difference in 2024. I’d say it’s been a bumper season and the size and quality of the fish was exceptional. Even our own expert fish farmer Scott was very impressed! Our members have made good use of our ten weekly Brenig rods so we are continuing with the same in 2025 - 2 rods every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday all year. Fishing effort is less in the winter months which is perhaps understandable but it’s always worth a trip out, dressed for the elements and armed with an intermediate or slow sinking line.
Brenig will close for stocking from March 1st reopening on March 15th. The Alwen Reservoir will not be stocked but remains available to us as a multi-method fishery. In addition we can now also fish Llyn Aled Uchaf, which is multi method (so fly, spinner or single worm) and that will be stocked with trout. Travelling from Denbigh on the A543 continue past the Sportsmans Arms. The next turning right is probably signposted Llansannan. Turn here and Aled Uchaf is the first lake you come to. The next lake along is Aled Isaf and not fishable on our club ticket.
Our own lake Llyn Crud y Gwynt fished steadily, especially from May onwards. The returns are incomplete as for part of the year catches were still reported online and they have been lost. However the catches based on the diary in the hut were 152 rainbow trout, 53 browns and 40 blues, totalling 245. Just 15 fish were taken for the pot.
The last 2 seasons catch returns showed over 250 sea trout and more than 900 wild brown trout caught on our Association river beats. A number of our members did not fish the rivers, preferring the still waters, but those who did and put in the effort were rewarded. Disproving what some keyboard warriors have claimed recently.
So I recommend that if you haven’t fished the rivers give it a go. If you’re not sure where to start, or what to use please ring any of the committee who’ll be only too glad to help.
We’ve agreed to continue our reciprocal arrangement with Llangollen Maeolor AA. A few more members are making use of our 2 rod share to fish the Welsh Dee and the river Dee returns for 2024 show 3 sea trout, 55 browns and 93 grayling. Well done anyone who fished the rivers. Whether you blanked or had success the riverbank it's a great place to spend a few hours.
Chris. Chair RASAAA. 23.2.2025
LEARN TO CAST A FLY FOR £10
We will be running three "Introduction to Fly Fishing" events in 2025
at our member's lake near Denbigh on
Saturday April 26th 2025
Saturday July 5th 2025
Saturday September 20th 2025
CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO MORE DETAILS
(The April event is now fully booked)
Following the initial demonstration our coaches will guide you through the basics
and by the end of the day you'll be casting for rainbow and brown trout
at our spring-fed lake.
The event commences at 10:30a.m. and usually finishes around 3:30pm.
A link for more information and entry form will appear here
nearer the time of each event.
Cost for adult non-members - £10
All association members and any u-16's - FREE
2025
FISHING AT
LLYN BRENIG
Our Members' Llyn Brenig / Alwen & Aled Uchaf Reservoir
tickets run from January 1st to December 31st.
Llyn Brenig is a top international fishery and we are delighted to offer this opportunity to our members at no extra cost. Brenig's rainbow trout are very hard-fighting as they are raised in the lake and many grow on to a very large size!
From 2025 the Alwen Reservoir will not be stocked, but will remain a multi-method fishery available to us through our booking system.
In addition Llyn Aled Uchaf will be stocked with trout, and that will also be available to our members on the same ticket allocation as an alternative to Brenig, but multi-method.
OUR 2025 ROD ALLOCATION
From 1-1-2025 we'll have 2 RODS every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That's about 500 rod days bookable for members via our online booking system.
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Please Note:
ANPR cameras at Brenig.
You need to book in at the Visitor Centre each time you go fishing there and log in your car reg. no's to avoid a parking ticket!
Above: 5lb rainbow. Tower Bay July 2023
Below: 4lb rainbow January 7th 2024
ABOUT US
Rhyl & St Asaph Angling Association forms one of the oldest fishing clubs in North Wales, covering a period of around seventy years. It is a founder member of the Federation of Clwyd Angling Clubs, and a member of the Angling Trust.
The three main rivers of the Clwyd catchment offer some of the best fishing in Wales for sea trout (sewin). Our Association has 21 river beats:- 10 on the Clwyd, 10 on the Elwy and a long beat on the Aled, many in prime areas of the catchment. These give members excellent and affordable game fishing for salmon, sea trout and wild brown trout in the Vale of Clwyd and Elwy Valley, areas of outstanding natural beauty.
An important consideration when you are looking to join a club is ease of access to the fishing and Rhyl & St Asaph AA members have easy access as many of our river beats are within 4Km of St Asaph. Sea trout and salmon will reach many of our beats much sooner than people realise after they enter the river system on a high tide at Rhyl. Whilst our waters are not tidal, a tide table is a valuable tool to have.
Members do not need to book to fish most of our river beats. The two beats that are bookable are available 24/7 via our online booking system. They have a six rod limit on each, and are split-day basis 6am - 6pm or 6pm - 6am, so plenty of availability for daytime and night-time anglers.
We also have a rod share with Llangollen Maelor A.C. to fish the Welsh Dee, for salmon, sea trout and brown trout, and a big bonus is the grayling fishing. As one of the best grayling rivers in Europe it hosts the annual Hanak Grayling Festival.
We now have an exchange arrangement with Llandeilo Angling Association who have water on the Towy and Cothi. Details will be posted on the website soon, meantime contact Chris Porteous.
Whether you are looking to fly fish at night for the famous Welsh sewin or are content with concentrating on the wild brown trout in our rivers, or indeed you may be lucky in hooking a fresh run salmon – the choice is yours! All legal fishing methods are permitted (Fly, spin & worm) subject to the All-Wales Byelaws.
Stillwater Fishing:-
The Association has rods on Llyn Brenig / Alwen Reservoir / Llyn Aled Uchaf - 2 rods every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday all year round. Brenig is an international fly-fishing venue, known for its hard fighting trout, reared on site. It's known as a great top of the water venue being stocked with many large rainbow trout. Alwen is not stocked now but has wild brown trout and a head of coarse fish - it is multi-method. Llyn Aled Uchaf is stocked and available to us as a multi-method fishery. Someone to take your younger relatives perhaps who are not yet ready to cast a fly.
Llyn Crud y Gwynt is our members' trout lake. It's a 2 acre spring-fed reservoir hidden away in a truly peaceful location. We stock it with rainbow, blue and brown trout. Barbless fly only.
BEAT WALKS
GUIDED MEMBERS' BEAT WALKS
2025
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Watch this space for details of our guided beat walks
RING CHRIS ON
07970 216533
How about a superb replica
of a prized catch?
We came across this stall at BFFI 2024 and were amazed at the realism of the salmon sculpture. The fine detail of the hand-painted scales, and the lovely shimmer on the flank of the fish looked just amazing.
Mayfly Fish Recreations is run by Marc Williams, based on the North Wales coast. He specialises in creating high quality, handcrafted fish recreations offering an alternative to traditional fish taxidermy methods, working from your fish photographs, descriptions and measurements.
weblink - Mayfly Fish Recreations
07761 088039
IT'S TIME FOR MEMBERS TO RENEW MEMBERSHIP
AND COMPLETE THEIR 2024 CATCH RETURN
2024 ONLINE CATCH RETURN
Please note that due to demand we have extra rods for llyn brenig/alwen this year.
Water Quality Monitoring
We currently carry out monitoring at four sites as part of a UK-wide Angling Trust initiative. Readings of nitrate, phosphate, ammonia concentrations, and electrical conductivity, are sent monthly to a national database.
Parallel to this we are also part of the Anglers Riverfly Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) taking kick samples of invertebrates at four river sites, results of which are uploaded to the Riverfly database.
Monitoring our rivers is so important - think of this as the "canary in the mine".
If you would like to get involved in this very interesting project please contact any committee member.
1-day & 5-day VISITOR PERMITS
Visitor tickets are available at £15 for 1 day or £60 for 5 days.
They may be purchased at Foxons of St Asaph or online HERE
ASSOCIATION beat
maintenance PARTIES 2025
River Keepers John and Rich would love to see members on the riverbank in 2025.
Maintenance of our fishing is high on our agenda and a fun way to get to know the beats, meet other members and catch up on the fishing news.
Please click HERE for details.
WE RECOMMEND THAT ALL ANGLERS
JOIN THE ANGLING TRUST
AS AN INDIVIDUAL MEMBER FOR £30
As an Angling Trust member you receive big savings on products and services from trade partners AND discounted fishing venues.
The £10m civil liability insurance alone is worth the annual fee.
Our Association is a Member of the Trust but many more individual members are needed in Wales. Moving forward we need the Trust and Fish Legal to represent game anglers in Wales and help us look after our rivers and game fishing.
For more information click on the link to the Angling Trust website
where you will see some of their campaigns on our behalf:-
Sea Trout Fishing
Fly fishing for sea trout at night is, for many anglers, the ultimate form of wild fishing.
Sea trout are genetically the same as brown trout but they migrate to the estuary and coastal waters in search of food where they grow much larger than most of their river-dwelling brothers and sisters. Most returning fish are between 12oz to 2lb, but a good number around the 4lb - 8lb range are caught. A 6 or 7 lb sea trout would be regarded as a specimen and anything approaching 10lb a fish of a lifetime.
Our Association centred around St Asaph in Denbighshire North Wales has 20 beats on the rivers Clwyd, Elwy and Aled, each with wild brown trout and runs of sea trout and salmon.
Because sea trout are very shy, and the river you are fishing may be low and gin clear, it is important to wait until it is really dark before commencing fishing. Stealth is the watch word. No stray headlamp lights or stomping around the bank here. Moonless nights and warm nights with cloud cover are generally preferred and your eyes do become accustomed to the low light levels.
In the quiet of a river valley at midnight, your senses become heightened - every rustle in the undergrowth, the plop of a water vole entering the water, the call of an owl or fox - all these sounds at night seem to be amplified. This can take some getting used to but once you feel at home on a familiar river bank at night daytime fishing could seem tame!
You cast out to where you hope the fish will be, waiting to continue their upstream migration. Your team of two flies swings around in the current, nothing takes, so you retrieve, and re-cast, trying to reach as near to the other bank as possible without snagging. Four casts later and tawny owls are calling to each other and you're gazing up trying to find the North Star when something tries to snatch the rod from your grasp!
There is nothing quite like the sensation of your fly line suddenly tightening as a fresh run sea trout rips line from your reel, and, as often happens, performs a vertical leap out of the water, stopping your heart for a brief moment, adrenalin now pumping, before your fly is ejected leaving you a quivering wreck staring in disbelief as the surface of the pool settles down.
If this sounds exciting to you, you'll be pleased to know that membership of our Association is still open at a cost of £165 for the first 12 months (for adults of 21 and over). Age 16 up to 21 is just £30. Under 16's enjoy free membership. Adult renewal subscription is £150 for 2023 season.
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If you've never cast a fly before our three qualified coaches can teach you. Best to learn to fly fish first at our stocked lake, and in daytime on the rivers before you venture out at night.
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And some of our experienced night fishers will be only too pleased to accompany you on your first forays in the dark and welcome you to a whole new experience. If you take to it, I guarantee it's completely addictive and for you fishing will just never be the same again!
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Chris Porteous
Chairman
Rhyl and St Asaph Angling Association
February 28th 2023
MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION PAGE
........at Night
RIVER DEE FISHING WITH
Llangollen-Maelor a.a.
We are very grateful for our reciprocal arrangement with Llangollen-Maelor AA. This allows two of our members per day to fish their waters on the River Dee near Llangollen. (and vice-versa).
Depending on close season dates, salmon, sea-trout, brown trout and grayling may be fished for until the end of August, with brown trout and grayling only after that date.
Details of the beats and rules can be found on their website www.llangollen-maelor-angling.com/
PLEASE NOTE: Some beats are strictly reserved for LMAA members only.
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Including the fishing at Llyn Brenig and on the rivers Clwyd, Elwy, Aled and Dee, our members now have access to approx. 33 miles of bank fishing in North Wales.
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IMPORTANT NOTICE
Please be aware that fishing is NOT PERMITTED in the area where the new power lines cross the river Elwy towards the lower end of our Pont y Ddol beat. Scottish Power are erecting warning signs to this effect - WE DO NOT OWN THE FISHING RIGHTS BETWEEN THE SIGNS. This is for your safety - the pylons are a wooden type and do not appear to be as high as the metal ones such as those at Bryn Polyn/Wern Ddu.