I watched tonight's programme with Hywel Morgan, good egg he is.
There was a question sent in re the venues for the World Championships this month in Scotland, especially regarding the lack of fish caught on Loch Awe and Leven in the competition.
Re Loch Awe, Hywel stated that he would have bet his mortgage on a local Scottish angler who had fished the Loch for 25 yrs and knew it inside out catching fish. Said angler got TWO fish, most anglers blanked on Awe.

Re Loch Leven, Hywel said that it wasn't a problem, it has been fishing well for a couple of years.
However there were a serious number of blanks there over the 3 days. Ask Jim, alias 3lb Grayling on this forum, who was boatman how easy it was, ork any regular Leven angler how it has been fishing.

I do not have the capability of checking, but I dare bet that the winning England Team accrued more points (which is bad) than any other winning team in recent World Championships.

PS Well done to the Welsh Rivers Team for getting Gold today on the Taff.

This was the "World Championships", These guys fish all over the world and are not looking to stockie bash. Both of these lochs are up there with the best in the world,by that I dont mean for numbers of easy fish but for the returns for getting it right. jim

abacus,

Heats were fished as 3 hour sessions during the day! Loch awe had sunlight splitting the trees each day, Leven had cold easterly winds, and sunshine, I was there as boatman all 5 sessions at Leven, 50% of anglers with me blanked, but ALL had more than one rise/take/follow, put in context, 50% of anglers with me caught wild brown trout up to 6lbs during the worst parts of the day for Leven!! Wouldnt have liked to try it myself, but evening rise, well as jim and a couple other boatmen will testify, that was a different story -----

I'm supposed to be heading to loch awe after work tonight until sunday and am by no means a world championship grade fisher, in fact, I only caught my first wild brownie less than 2 weeks ago!

Is the fishing generally difficult up there? The other people I am with are absolute beginners. Do you think we should head somewhere else? We'll drive anywhere but would like a nice place to camp on the loch side and easyish access with a car.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

(if loch awe is a good spot for trout then any tips would be most welcome too!)

mc trout,i will give you some advice if you end up camping at loch awe make sure you have plenty midgie repellent you will need it.

Concentrate your efforts on the Pass of Brander, plenty of rainbows there. It's a big dour loch, sometimes it can be brilliant but more often than not it's a very hard water. As Craigie has said, bring plenty of midge repellant.

Oh, and good luck

Walker