February 2026
Night fishing for sewin can be an unnerving business, even to the most resolute angler.
Standing in a river as darkness falls, senses become heightened. Small, innocent sounds – the rustle of a small rodent, the breath of a cow, the distant barking of farm dogs – become much more discernible. Small changes in air temperature and vagaries in the flow of water brushing against an angler’s leg are barely noticeable in the day. In the dark, they stand neck hairs to attention.
Experienced night anglers say that a descending mist will almost erase any chance of catching a sewin. Why the fish would switch off is anyone’s guess but a spectral white shroud enveloping the nightscape, especially under moonlight, certainly ramps up the eeriness. Throw in an owl, an old ruin and the flutter of a few bats and you have more than enough to send less doughty sewin hunters to the safety of a warm bed. The curse of mist could be just as much about the angler as it is the sewin.
The dark waters of the Gutter Pool on the Llwchwr, a known haunt for large sewin. Photo: Oliver Burch
The upper reaches of the Llwchwr.
Cockles have been harvested from the Burry Inlet (Llwchwr estuary) since before Roman times. However, the fishery was in decline in the early 1900s, partly due to the high levels of pollution in the river. The fishery is one of only two in Wales that are Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified.
Downloadable Llwchwr fact sheet (English and Welsh)
Tro Will
In the middle reaches of the Afon Llwchwr (River Loughor) in South Wales there is a prolific pool called Tro Will, named in honour of a local angler who caught thousands of fish from it. Now passed, the old fisherman is said to haunt his once favourite spot, protecting it from those that dare to try their luck there.
One night, another experienced and highly successful angler thought he would take his chances. Poised expectantly for a violent snatch from a fly-taking sewin, he was instead startled by a ghostly figure drifting across the water towards him.
His friends arrived the next morning to collect the fishing rod and other impediments that had been discarded in the frantic dash back to the car. To this day, the angler has never returned to that part of the river.
And he is by no means the only one said to have had a ‘Tro Will experience’.
Source
The Afon Llwchwr rises from a series of limestone caves within the Black Mountain in the western extremity of the Brecon Beacons. Named Llygad Llwchwr (eye of the Loughor). From there it flows in a southerly direction, through Ammanford, Garnswllt and Pontarddulais, picking up tributaries such as the Amman and Morlais along the way.
At Pontarddulais the river’s tidal reaches begin and it enters its estuary, known as the Burry Inlet, some 20 miles from source.
The origin of the name Llwchwr is unclear. Some sources claim it is derived from the Roman name for the town of Loughor (Leucarum), others state that the Romans named their fort after the existing Welsh name. It is perhaps derived from ‘llychwr’ meaning ‘daylight’ or ‘bright’, words often used to describe Welsh rivers. Alternatively, Llwch could refer to a bog or a body of water, similar to Loch in Scotland and Lough in Ireland.
One theory suggests that Loughor town used to be called Trewane, a corruption of Trefane or “Beaver Town”, because of the once abundance of the rodent in the area.
Llwchwr sewin and pollution
However, the Llwchwr is renowned among anglers as a premier Welsh sewin river. Writing in 1904, Augustus Grimble stated that in the mid-19th Century, the river had been famous for its large sewin but that the ravages of coal mining and other heavy industry in its catchment, along with poaching, meant the river would probably “…..join the ranks of the Ebbw, Romney, Neath and other fishless streams of South Wales.”
Thirty years earlier, the a tin plate works had been prosecuted for a pollution that caused a fish kill in the Llwchwr. And it was, perhaps, small victories like that which kept the Llwchwr salmon and sewin runs ticking over through the widely polluting Victorian industrial period.
Of course, industrial pollution does not just affect fish in freshwater. In 1906, an article in the Cambrian Friday, entitled ‘Ruining Loughor River’ stated that “Anglers and fishermen around the estuary of the Loughor river are loud in their complaints of the decline of the shoals of bass, flounders, soles, salmon, trout, and sewin formerly in that river.”
Decline of the cockle fishery
And it does not just affect fish. In the early 20th Century, the cockle industry of the Burry Inlet was reported to be in decline, partly because of the Loughor’s pollution but also due to other factors such as the spread of spartina, an invasive plant species brought over in ships from the United States.
By the 1960s and ‘70s, the river continued to be stained black with coal dust from the mines in the Amman Valley. Despite this, sewin and salmon were running the river in numbers. At 5pm every day, the mines finished work and in the summer months the Llwchwr would be clear enough for anglers to start fishing at nightfall. In the morning, the river turned black again.
Even after the heavy industry and coal mining had stopped, the Llwchwr was still under threat. The river suffered a significant fish kill in the early 1990s when thousands of sewin died, some over 15lbs. Low flows, high water temperatures and high nutrient levels had combined to create excessive algal growth in the river. Anglers were witnessing many of the fish dying at night, probably due to the respiration of the algae, a process that can lower oxygen levels in the water below levels that salmonids can endure.
Cleaning up the Llwchwr
Investment by the water industry followed, primarily to protect the cockle and shellfish industries in the Burry Inlet. Following improvements to wastewater treatment, Welsh Water implemented ‘Rainscape’, the first natural scheme to reduce the amount of rainwater entering the sewer system in Llanelli and thereby reducing the number of overflow discharges into the Llwchwr.
Despite Welsh Water’s investment, however (£115 million for Rainscape across Llanelli and Gowerton between 2012 and 2020), the Burry Inlet Special Area of Conservation (SAC) has once again failed to meet nitrogen standards, in place to protect the designated species and habitat. This is due to continued wastewater impact and agricultural pollution in the area.
Hope for recovery
Following the major ‘90s fish kill, sewin numbers recovered quickly in the years immediately following that kill and the river once again became prolific. While migration can increase vulnerability, having a proportion of your population always out at sea is also an important survival strategy for sewin, as it is for salmon, offering some protection from any catastrophic in-rivers events.
Today, sewin numbers are once again in steep decline in the Llwchwr and across Wales. However, given that brown trout remain in the river and that sewin are the same species (only differing in that they migrate to sea to feed there) gives some semblance of hope that the runs will one day return.
But until all the threats throughout its lifecycle are identified and resolved, numbers of an iconic fish that is entwined with the fabric of Welsh culture will remain depressed.
So too you assume will the underemployed ghost of the Tro Will pool.
Our thanks to Barry Hale of Ammanford and District Angling Association and Oliver Burch for information and photos.
References & More Information:
“Burry Inlet and Dee Estuary Cockles” Marine Stewardship Council
National Library of Wales Newspaper Collection
“The salmon and sea trout rivers of England and Wales” Augustus Grimble, 1904