The Warren

11 Mansel Street, Carmarthen

Book the Cwtch Book a table
Andrew Davies outside the Warren on Mansel Street, holding a crate of mackerel on ice

In memoryCoracle fisherman, Afon Tywi

Andrew Davies

A life connected to the River Tywi

Coracle fisherman, chairman of the Carmarthen Coracle and Netsmen’s Association, and our friend and supplier for over ten years.

Watch Andrew in Yma o Hyd

The filmYma o Hyd, 2026

Meet Andrew on the river

Yma o Hyd means “still here”. It follows the coracle men and netsmen of Carmarthenshire on the river, and Andrew is in it. If you never met him, this is the best way to.

22 minutes Flytrap Films, 2026. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.

Remembering Andrew

Ten years and more

We knew Andrew for well over ten years. He supplied us with wild venison, fish caught straight off his own boat, and plenty more besides.

He was a genuinely beautiful, kind-hearted man, with an extraordinary connection to the River Tywi. Andrew came in to share his stories with our volunteers over lunch just last month, it was a special moment I'm proud he shared with us all.

Andrew died suddenly in October 2026. Our thoughts are with his family, and with everyone on the river who fished alongside him.

Rest in peace, Andrew.

The coracle men

The ancient art of coracle fishing

A coracle is a small round boat for one person, light enough to carry home on your back. On the Tywi they were built from ash laths with a woven hazel rim, and since the 1970s many have been made of fibreglass. They have fished this river for centuries.

The coracle men fish in pairs, at night, through the summer season. Two coracles drift down the river with a net held between them. Each man holds the net in one hand and paddles with the other, a figure of eight with a single paddle. When a fish hits the net the two boats are drawn together and the net is closed. It takes years to learn: the tides, the light, the colour of the water, and where the sewin and salmon run.

In the 1860s around 400 coracle men worked the Tywi. By 1935 there were twelve pairs. Coracle fishing now survives in Britain only on the Tywi, the Teifi and the Taf, and when Andrew spoke to the BBC in August 2026, only four licences had been taken out on the Tywi that season, against twelve when he started.

Andrew was chairman of the Carmarthen Coracle and Netsmen’s Association, which has looked after the fishery since 1938. What its members know is not written down anywhere. It passes down families and from one pair of hands to the next, and it only lasts as long as there are fish in the river and people on the water to learn it. Research from two years spent with the Association warns that the river’s decline, and rules meant to protect what is left, are turning a working fishery into a heritage display.

Photographs

Andrew and the river

Andrew in the Warren stores with one of the kitchen team, each holding a bag of his wild venison
Andrew with a delivery of his wild venison, in the Warren stores. Photograph: The Warren

Afon Tywi

A river under pressure

“When I first started, this river was black with fish.” That was Andrew, talking to the BBC in August 2026. He had fished the Tywi for 38 years and had never known a season like it. He reckoned the four coracle men on the river had caught twelve fish between them all summer, when a few years before you could catch that many in a night.

Salmon and sewin, the sea trout this river is famous for, are disappearing from the Tywi. Last summer Carmarthen’s mayor said the river was dying, and the Tywi River Festival was called off because of pollution.

  • Farming

    Slurry and fertiliser wash off fields into streams and on into the river, feeding algae and stripping the water of oxygen. Volunteers testing the Tywi, including the campaign group Achub y Tywi, have found signs of farm waste.

  • Sewage

    Storm overflows still put untreated sewage into Welsh rivers after heavy rain. Welsh Water says it will spend £889m on storm overflows between 2025 and 2030, with six projects on the Tywi.

  • Industry

    The same volunteer testing found signs of industrial waste, and Natural Resources Wales has been investigating pollution claims on the river.

  • Lost habitat

    Banks trampled bare, gravel beds choked with silt, and weirs and culverts that stop fish reaching the streams where they breed.

  • A changing climate

    Warmer, lower summer rivers hold less oxygen, and salmon are finding it harder to survive at sea as well.

This is not only about fish numbers. When the fish go, so does everything that lived alongside them: the otters and the herons, the coracle men and what they know, and a local food that has fed this town for centuries.

What Andrew saw

Listen to the people on the water

Andrew spent nearly four decades on the Tywi, most of it at night, watching the water. He saw the river change long before any report said so, and he kept saying it. He and the other fishermen reported pollution to Natural Resources Wales again and again, and he told the BBC that nothing seemed to be done.

In August 2026 he travelled to Kodiak Island in Alaska with fellow coracle man Len Walters, through the Coastal TALES project, to meet Alutiiq fishing families facing the same questions on their own waters, and to show Yma o Hyd to an audience for the first time.

People who spend their lives on a river know it in a way no survey can. They notice the first warm summer, the first green water, the first year the sewin do not come. If we want to keep the Tywi alive, we have to listen to them while they are still on it.

What you can do

The river is still here. So are we.

Andrew would rather you did something than felt sad. Here is where to start.

  1. Report pollution

    Dead fish, discoloured water, foam, a smell of sewage: ring Natural Resources Wales straight away, day or night, on 0300 065 3000. Every report goes on the record, and the record is what gets action.

    How to report an incident

  2. Follow the river’s recovery

    Four Rivers for LIFE, led by Natural Resources Wales, is restoring the Tywi, Teifi, Cleddau and Usk: fencing riverbanks, clearing barriers so fish can get upstream, and working with farmers to keep pollution out of the water.

    Four Rivers for LIFE

  3. Tell your Member of the Senedd

    River pollution in Wales is a Senedd decision. A short note saying the Tywi matters to you, and why, is read more often than you would think.

    Find your Member of the Senedd

  4. Keep the coracles on the water

    The Coracle Society supports the last coracle fisheries in Britain, the Tywi’s among them. Join, go to a regatta, or have a go yourself.

    The Coracle Society

  5. Watch the film, and share this page

    The more people who know what is happening to the Tywi, the harder it is to ignore. Send Yma o Hyd to someone who has never seen a coracle.

The bookComing soon

A book is on its way

We will put the details here as soon as it is published.

Further reading

Andrew Davies Afon Tywi Yma o hyd