The fishery is no longer a trout fishery and is now a carp fishery. I sold it in 2024 so that I could be closer to my family and to get away from the Welsh bureaucrats in the NRW who had made my life a hell for over 2 years.
Pant Y Bedw fishery used to be a working farm for hundreds of years and stocked a herd of cattle for most of that time. They rented land from other farms in the area for their herd.
In the 1990 Ian bought it and over the next couple of years built the 7 acre lake. This was made in 2 separate lakes to keep its size below the 25000 cubic meters of water. Over this size it would be classed as a reservoir and comes under different regulations. The lake is clay lined to prevent water leakage and a dam was built to the north end with a clay core, again to prevent leakage. This was then covered with soil. The dam is around 5 meters high and upto 20 m wide in places to ensure there is no movement. There is a 4ft diameter spill way built to the north end of the lake which connects to the original stream that flowed through the property.
The original farm house is next door and was owned by Ian and Sue for many years. They built stock ponds in the garden to bread their own fish.
Ian and Sue ran the fishery for many years and would host the local Scouts and clubs from the area as well as many eager trout still water fishermen and women. The fishery was doing well. Ian's health deteriorated and he was unable to keep the fishery in its pristine condition. The lake needed constant weeding in the summer months and the banks needed strimming regularly which Ian was unable to do. They sold the farm house which they were living in and converted the old milking parlor into a comfortable 2 bed cottage. They also made accommodation for Ians mother in the dutch barn. Unfortunately she died before she was able to use it.
The property was put up for sale around 2016 2017 and I was lucky enough to buy it from them. I thought it was heaven on earth.
I had retired in 2006 and spent several years volunteering and running my own wildlife projects in Africa and ended up in Malawi. I spent several years there until 2012 when I decide life had become too hard to run a project. Malawi struggles to get any fuel or food due to the way the government runs the country. Thats all I will say on that subject.
I came home to the UK to help my mum who was in a bad way and when she died I decided to look for another challenge in life and the fishery seemed right for me. The fishery has a 7 acre lake, 4 acre paddock, several barns and about 20 acres of new and ancient woodland. My plan was to run the fishery as a hobby and do training courses in the woods to people to live the outdoor life as well as wild camping. In Africa I had trained to become a wildlife ranger and knew how to survive in the jungle.
I applied for all the necessary licences and got going.
My priority was to get the fishery back on its feet so I stocked the lake with prime trout from Exmoor fishery and set about advertising the fishery on the internet. This started to pull in the fishermen and they commented on how good the fishery looked and how it was fishing well.The main issue with the lake was weed during the summer months and it is one thing that trout anglers do not like is weed. Ian had left me a very ingenious weed boat with a 25 HP motor and through a series of levers and pullies the boat would lower a large collection basket into the water and this would drag the weeds off the bottom which could then be raised and dropped off on the bank. The other method was to use steel rates tied to rope. These were thrown out into the weed and then dragged along the bottom to collect the weed. Both methods were very effective. The third method was the use a chemical die (diofix) which was harmless to the environment, fish and people. When added to the water in very small doses it would cut out a certain wave length of light which would stop the growth of the weed. These 3 methods solved the issue of weed which made the anglers happy although there were still a few that moaned of they pick up a strand on weed once in every 10 casts.
One of my helpers was and old chap, Mike, Who loved his fishing and had been at the lake some 30 years earlier when it opened and he used to come over to help with some of the tasks.
So the lake was now sorted and fishing well and regularly stocked with fresh rainbow and blue trout from Exmoor.
Many of the Welsh trout fishing team would come to the lake. Mat caught over 20 days on one of his trips. Even Sir Gareth Edwards turned up one day with his grand son. All was going well.
I think it was some time in 2021 I got a letter from the NRW saying they wanted to inspect the lake. You cannot deny them access so we set up a meeting. 2 guys arrived with their computer and started asking questions about the lake, the fish, the dam, the spill way, culverts and general questions about the place. To cut a long story short they came up with the story that all lakes over 10000 cubic m of water were now classed as reservoirs and would need to be treated differently to a lake. Ok no problem with that. They then came back to me with their computer and said they were going to treat the lake as a high risk reservoir which came under even tighter regulations than it just being a reservoir. This would mean the lake and dam would need to meet several requirements, need to be inspected by a dam engineer every year and to be inspected by a higher up engineer every 10 years. A flood plan would need to be written and several calculations made for the spill way as well as how the dam was maintained. On top of this a walk way would need to be constructed between the bank and the spillway. In the bottom of the spillway was a 12 inch valve that could be used to lower the level in the lake. Another valve would need to be installed as a safety valve should the other valve not close properly when in operation. This had nothing to do with safety. The bit that really rattled me was that their computer had said there was a 1 in 1000 year chance that the dam would fail and there was a 1 in 1000 year chance that the spillway would block. Utterly ridiculous.
I decided to get a second opinion from my reporting dam engineer. We set up another meeting and he discussed the issues with the NRW who again referred to their computer and with a total lack of integrity and lack of common sense would not budge. It was then that we decided to employ the next level of engineer to discuss this with the NRW. He came and visited the site and sent his report to the NRW only to be told the same thing. His advice to me was to accept their decision as if we fought it it could cost thousand of pounds to fight a government department and we would still probably lose.
I paid the engineers for their time and reports and carried out the changes that needed to be carried out.
The walk way and extra valve cost thousand of pounds. The NRW now charge an annual fee as does the annual inspection of the dam. I also had to pay for the first 10 year inspection as well.
I dont know if the new owner is doing what the NRW want or not but that is not my issue anymore.
The other bit of Welsh bureaucracy came in 2000 when I put in for planning permission to convert the barn closest to the lake in to a 2 bed fishing lodge. I decided to employ a local firm of architects who were used to dealing with the council. We put in for outline planning permission which was granted with provision that we did and engineering survey and a bat survey on the barn in question. Both of these were completed and accepted so we put in for full planning. We had to include litigation for the bats and swallows nesting in the barn by putting up bird boxes outside the new building. More expense.
This planning permission was not granted because we had to modify the foul drainage system which the council had not even mentioned in the outline planning permission. If they had included this in their conditions of the first outline planning permission I would probably have not applied for the full planning permission. I went back to the architects and got their advice and it appeared it was down to me although I had paid them most of their fee. I had to pay for an engineers advice and he obviously charged me but gave me advice.
The council said we could not use a settling pond as originally specified and the outlet of the drain had to be more than 200m from the existing cesspit for the house and discharge more than 50m from the lake so I had to come up with and alternative. The engineer suggested a biomass foul water system which would have increased the cost of the building work by around £10000 but it was the only option. We resubmitted the application to the council and didn't hear anything for months so I wrote again and asked the architects to write as well. Still no reply. Someone then said to write to my local Councillor, Anne, and ask if she could help. Within 2 weeks the planning permission was granted.
So after all the bureaucracy and hassle which by now had destroyed my dream I decided to move back to civilization in England.
I hope the new owner is having more luck with the NRW and the council. I have since found out that Carmarthen council and NRW are among the most corrupt departments in Wales and wondered if my lack of not giving in to corruption was anything to do with my issues.