ABERAERON TOWN ANGLING CLUB
THE RIVER AERON’S ONLY ANGLING CLUB
30 June 2025
The first fish have been caught on the river. Dai Bach had 3 this week from the Town Pools water including his first sewin on fly. Water levels are dropping but are holding up well considering the dry weather we have had for some weeks now. Temperatures are creeping up and we are keeping a close eye on this - if they exceed 20C we may need to take some action. If returning your fish, play them hard, get them in quickly are release carefully, allowing them plenty of time to recover before letting them swim off.
02 April 2025
The season has opened and, superficially, the river looks in good condition but, sadly, all is not well with the chemistry of the river with high levels of nitrate being routinely seen in the Club’s fortnightly chemical testing - this leads to eutrophication of the water and algal blooms. Anyone who has fished the river over the years would know that the bed is now covered in a brown slimy growth which gets worse as the season moves on and temperatures rise through the summer months. The river Aeron should be a low nutrient, acidic, rain fed river with clean gravels and stones on its bed without much sediment build up and weed growth. The photo below was taken on the town’s weir pools on 01 April 2025 and shows the excessive algal growth already - the causes are slurry ingress, fertiliser and sewage pollution. Sewage pollution on the Aeron is not a major factor as the main treatment works at Aberaeron discharges to sea; however, the treatment works at Felinfach does discharge to the river in certain conditions to protect it from overflow when there is significant rain and run off into the drainage system. During 2024 this treatment works discharged to the river 43 times for a total of 180 hours (7.5 days total) spread across an average of 3.6 sessions per month. Whilst this is far from ideal it does not explain the pictures below. The Club is actively monitoring and putting pressure on NRW to resolve the root causes though farming effluent as the primary cause is difficult to eradicate or even reduce given the present political status in Wales. It’s little comfort but the Aeron is far from alone in this regard.
For all the test data being collected by the Club, check the Water quality testing page.
RIVER REPORT
