ABERAERON TOWN ANGLING CLUB
THE RIVER AERON’S ONLY ANGLING CLUB
News 2025
21 January
A large ash tree, one of many that fell during storm Darragh, ended up on the bank in Bevan’s, restricting access to the pool. It was unlikely to be moved by subsequent floods, due to its size and the position it ended up in, so a focused bank maintenance group took care of it earlier today. It is likely, given the extent of ash die back in ash trees along the river corridor upstream, that this will become a regular occurrence over the coming years. The Club has invested in appropriate equipment to safely and efficiently perform the work and does so against a comprehensive bank maintenance risk assessment taking all safety considerations into account.
13 January
Water quality testing
Many of you will have seen previous news on our water quality testing programme on the Aeron. Mike Lench kindly volunteers to do the testing at roughly 2 week intervals and tests for temperature, pH, conductivity, phosphate and nitrate at 3 points on the lower Aeron:
1 Llanerchaeron at the picnic area (main river sample above the Mydyr confluence)
2 Corner Pool (below the Mydyr but above the sewage treatment works)
3 Town pools (worst case taking contributions from upstream, Mydyr and sewage treatment
works)
The data has been collected for several months now and a picture is emerging. Nitrate routinely fails the alert limit and phosphate is present but at low levels with spikes. Of course this is not real time monitoring but is at a frequency of one day in fourteen so we may be missing many spikes but simply don’t have the resources to test daily. Phosphate and nitrate in rivers arise from agricultural run off and from sewage treatment processes. Slurry spreading on land in the Aeron valley has been and remains a serious diffuse and acute pollution source; acute incidents can kill fish and aquatic invertebrates over many miles of river whereas diffuse and chronic sources can result in eutrophication of the water resulting in blooms of algae, something we have seen very regularly in summer months with algae coating the stones in the river bed; the Aeron is an acidic low nutrient river that should not result in these levels of algae.
The Club will continue to monitor, developing the picture as more data is accumulated.
With other similar citizen scientist studies taking place in the county, the assembled
data will prove useful over time in addressing the problem.
A big thank you is extended
to Mike for giving up his time in all weathers to collect this valuable data.
Click
on the graphs below to expand onto a larger page for ease of viewing.
19 January
Club dinner
The annual Club presentation dinner that was postponed from
December due to bad weather will be rearranged for Friday 28 March, 7 for 7:30pm,
at the Hive, Aberaeron. Partners are welcome and a menu will be circulated shortly
to members.
Bank maintenance
There will be bank maintenance days on 21 January and 08 March, meet
at the Town Pools at 9:30am.
11 February 2025
Annual General Meeting
The Club’s 2024 AGM was held at the Sports Club, Aberaeron on 31 January 2025. The
key points arising from the meeting were:
18 March 2025
The Club held its first official bank maintenance day of the year on 08 March. The
town pools hedge had been cut earlier in the week before the bird nesting season
began but the remainder of the town pools and some pools upriver were cleared and
some fallen branches taken care off. The access to Station Pool along the fenceline
has been greatly improved.
31 March 2025
2024 Club presentation dinner
Storm Darragh caused the postponement of the dinner scheduled to be held last December
but the rearranged dinner was finally held at the Hive, Aberaeron on 28 March. The
evening was well attended with a mix of Riparian owners, Committee members, Club
members and other friends of the Club. The food and service was excellent and a few
celebratory drinks were had. Sadly, there were no river competitions contested in
2024, a reflection of the poor fishing season, but congratulations to the lake competition
winners who were:
Iorrie Lewis Lake Cup - Robin Foster
Alan Butler Spring Lake Cup
- Gareth Jones
David Morgan Autumn Lake Cup - Bryan Hughes
Mike Barrs Heaviest Trout on Fly Trophy
- Steven Williams
Alun Williams Memorial Lake Trophy - Mike Evans
The Clubman of the year award went
to Al Davies for his valued bank maintenance support over the years, the erection
of several styles and gates with Mike Lench last season and his regular commitment
to and support of the lake fishing competitions.
02 April 2025
Club marketing
The Committee has been looking at ways to market the Club with a view to increasing
membership. Two very recent additions are some plastic Club QR code plates and some
Club ‘business’ cards. The QR codes, when scanned with a phone, direct to the Club
website and these have been located at points around the town pools - some will also
be strategically placed on the Cwmmins water soon. The business cards display the
Club logo on one face and QR codes to the Club’s Facebook page, the Club’s website
and the Club’s map of waters on the other face. These can be given to prospective
members and will be placed in pubs around town and in the tackle shop in Aberystwyth.
07 April 2025
Water testing and invertebrate kick sampling continues on the Aeron
to generate data to support claims that the river is being affected by pollution
arising upstream. As has been previously reported, nitrate seems to be the main contributor
for the algal blooms seen on the river bed which becomes more extensive as the seasons
progress and water warms up. NRW seems powerless to address this issue which is clearly
affecting many rivers across the country. It takes some time for a picture to emerge
but some trends are becoming apparent in the data even now after 15 months of testing.
See the water quality testing page for the data.