The coracle man with a 300-year-old family legacy on the river
Malcolm Rees has one of the rarest and certainly no ordinary job in Wales. He is a coracle sherman and has spent his whole life navigating the waters of the River Towy in his home town of Carmarthen. Ian Lewis reports
CORACLE shing and the building of coracles run in Malcolm Rees’ blood. He is the eighth generation of his family to be involved in the tradition, which is sadly dying out in Wales, but he is ercely devoted to the cause. He rst set foot in a coracle at the age of two before learning the art of it all.
By his teenage years, he was out on the river shing and is now vice-chair of the Carmarthen Coracle and Netsmen’s Association.
Coracle shing only takes place in the summer months, only happens at night, and no shing is allowed at weekends.
At one time Carmarthen was Wales’ biggest port, with some 2,000 townsfolk making their living from the river. is included the tradition of coracle shing, which dates back to Roman times and became a large part of Wales’ heritage.
In the 1860s it was estimated that 400 coracle men relied on the river in Carmarthen.
e shermen who sh using this sustainable and unique method have in recent years seen their shing licence reduced to only being able to
sh for three months of the year between May 1 and July 31, and are only able to sh for sea trout (sewin in Welsh) and not salmon.
While Malcolm, 58, has a career away from the river as a nance broker, the discipline of coracle
shing is something he has always dedicated himself to, along with his wife Julie, who often tells stories and its history to tourists and wide-eyed schoolchildren on visits to the town’s Quay area.
Malcolm said: “Coracle shing is in my blood, my family connections with coracles can be traced back 300 years. My great-grandfather William Elias was born in 1876 and worked with coracles for much of his 98 years. My father Raymond Rees was a sherman who passed on his knowledge to me from when I was very small. I grew up learning about it.”
Raymond, who passed away at the end of 2013, was a notable gure in Carmarthen, known for his
shmonger stall at the town’s market. He not only taught his son how to sh in a coracle, but also how to build them.
Traditionally, a coracle was a small boat made with ash woven together to make a lattice and covered with a calico sheet then painted with three coats of bitumen paint.
is was a mixture of tar, linseed and pitch and was applied with a leather tassel, as a paintbrush which would just disintegrate.
Today breglass boats are used but Malcolm prefers still using traditionally built coracles, having made one for this summer. He said they “have a feel to them that’s better, I nd – it’s hard to describe”.
A seat is placed in the centre of the coracle, with
a seat support. Two leather straps are attached, with the larger one used to carry the coracle over the sherman’s shoulders.
Preparing the nets is also an essential part of the shing method, with the way weights are placed along the nets being crucial.
Malcolm makes his nets in a shed just above the river in the town, the very spot where his family has worked on coracles and netting since the 1930s.
He said: “ese lead weights are the size of your thumbnail, but knowing where to place them on a net is key – you’ll know if it’s wrong because you won’t catch any sh. Having said that, some have experimented and been innovative with weights and tried di erent ways, but they always come back to the tradition.”
Traditionally, shermen preferred to use hemp twine for making their nets. Cow tails would also be cut and spun into a single-ply rope, while cow horns would be cut into rings and evenly distributed on a cork line.
e net would then be dyed to match the colour of the river water – this would involve a small amount of bark from an oak tree, boiled in a saucepan until reduced by half and strained.
e net would then be soaked in the brown liquid for dyeing.
Contrary to belief, the net does not block the river o . e width of the net is 40ft when being made, but as it is suspended between the coracles, it opens in an arc shape and the actual space where the sh are caught is less than 3ft in height. Nursery and small sh are able to pass through the net as the mesh sizes are governed by strict legislation.
ere are also many superstitions involving the coracle nets that the shermen used – such as no woman being allowed to step over the top of the net. If that happened, it was said to make the net unusable for the night.
e coracle men would also weave their children’s hair into a strand and weave it into their nets for luck.
Another tradition that is still uttered on the river is the Welsh word “clyfwchwr”. Malcolm explains: “It means that is the time to begin shing, at dusk and if you can clearly see seven stars in the sky.
at has not changed for more than 300 years, we still go by it today. Coracle shing is a legacy that we don’t want to lose from the river, and a tradition that I feel strongly about.”
Coracle shing is in my blood, my family connections with coracles can be traced back 300 years