Based in the small mid-Wales market town of Machynlleth, Coch-y-Bonddu Books are leading international dealers in new and out-of-print books on the subjects of angling, game shooting, sporting dogs and falconry. Coch-y-Bonddu Books grew out of the interests of owner, Paul Morgan, who issued his first catalogue of second-hand fishing and sporting books in 1982, while he was still working as a water bailiff on the River Dyfi. A series of successful and comprehensive sporting catalogues enabled Paul to take up bookselling full-time in 1990, giving him more time to travel the world in pursuit of rare and interesting books.
Where are we?

The small cottage shared by Paul and his young family (and dogs) was soon filled to overflowing with thousands of old books. The need to take on more staff to deal with the ever-increasing mail-order business led to the acquisition of shop and storage premises in the centre of Machynlleth. His attractive stone-built shop is now a place of pilgrimage for anglers and sportsmen from all over the world. Endeavouring to provide as wide a range of books as possible, Paul soon found that the needs of his customers could not be met entirely from the second-hand market. This led to a policy of buying up extensive stocks of new books and remainders, and of encouraging publishers to reprint out-of-print titles that were in demand, and inevitably to Coch-y-Bonddu Books becoming publishers in their own right.

After publishing a series of reprints of important out-of-print books, including John Goddard's Waterside Guide and Successful Sea Trout Angling by Moc Morgan and Graeme Harris, Chapman's Fallow Deer and books on falconry, pest-control and long-netting, Paul, seeing the need for new books in innovative areas of flyfishing, began to publish new work.The first of these was his own very successful book on Saltwater Flyfishing in Britain and Northern Europe. Inspired by his love of bass fishing on the Welsh coast, Paul collaborated via the internet with saltwater anglers all over Europe to produce the first British book on the subject. Ground-breaking books on Flyfishing for big pike (by Alan Hanna) and Flyfishing for sailfish (by John Reynolds) quickly followed, then a co-edition of a wonderfully illustrated book by Danish pike flyfisher, Michael Jensen. Fred Buller's angling essays, A Solitary Vice, was published by Coch-y-Bonddu Books, and more recently, a new work by Fred J. Taylor, Rabbiting Man. Coch-y-Bonddu Books have kept in print the books of the late Brian Plummer , expert on terriers and lurchers and one of the great sporting characters of the twentieth century. Falconry customers have been treated to high-quality reprints of hawking classics by Fisher, Blaine, and, for next year, Latham's Falconry. We support authors and other small publishers, often by holding their entire stock for them. Examples of this include recent falconry books by Kenyon Gibson and Sirdar Mohamed Osman.
Charles Smith-Jones' muntjac book. Muntjac: managing an alien species  is a great, in-depth, look at the history, ecology, management and stalking of muntjac deer. Then we have a new reprint of the best whippet book ever. The English Whippet by Colonel Ted Walsh and Mary Lowe.

Paul continues to expand the out-of-print and antiquarian side of the business and publishes infrequent but definitive catalogues on fly-tying, falconry and sporting dogs. Look out for catalogues in progress on Poachers & Keepers, and Trapping & Tracking .