About Us
The club was set as a clay pigeon shooting club up in the early 1950’s amid concern for the loss of rough shooting due to myxomatosis amongst other things, it quickly expanded to include fishing and the club was formally set up as a shooting and fishing club around 1957 with the name of Clwb Godre’r Mynydd Du (the Club at the foot of the Black Mountain), with the purpose of ‘Promoting shooting, fishing and other sports in the area’ eventually buying two miles of the river Aman to ensure that fishing was always available at an affordable price for the local community and especially younger members.
The Aman is the area’s hidden gem – after surviving the rigours of over a century of the industrial revoloution: with three tinplate works, a chemical works and numerous coalmines all discharging into her waters, this main tributary of the river Loughor now affords exciting and challenging Sewin (sea trout) and wild brown trout fishing – and the big secret: prolific mid to late season salmon runs, many now topping double figures C.G.M.D is the only club which owns waters on this river, although some is in public ownership.
The club also owns a boat on the Usk reservoir for the use of its members which makes it a truly versatile club for the angler who fishes more than one discipline.
In 1974 it was decided that a permanent headquarters was needed and the members put their own money together to buy a former billiards hall and shop.Many members spent their spare time fitting out the clubhouse and it opened as a licenced premises in 1975.
The club was awarded a sports council grant in the late 1970’s to purchase a stretch on the river Cothi at Crugybar, a prolific sea trout and late salmon beat – known as Froodvale waters, we later bought another beat further upstream at Gwarygorof farm.
Other small beats followed,including securing rental of two rods on the Pant farm beat – the famous pipe pool.We therefore opened our books to all anglers making the fishing section a thriving business on its own, the club constitution was changed slightly with the clubhouse now run as a seperate business to C.G.M.D. Fishing section; although the fishing section’s input alone has kept the clubhouse a viable concern.
The fishing section started raising funds in earnest at the end of the 1990’s mostly with the help of the weekly tote double draw (still run today) which enabled us to buy another two beats on the Cothi, one – Mynachdu near Nantgaredig and the other mid river near Brechfa – Maesybidiau.We also negotiated rights with various farms at the top end of the Cothi above Pumsaint which means we now have access to some eight miles of the Cothi at various points along the rivers length.
The last beat acquired (so far) is the tirallen beat further up the Towy at Llanwrda – a lovely beat with plenty of scope for fly fishing and bait which now means that the club can offer fishing for all river and weather conditions somewhere on the Towy, Cothi or river Aman.
by CGMD