Hi,

New to this site and after looking around I have to say I am liking what I see. I live in central Scotland and for still water fishing I usually go to swanswater. Looking for new and exciting places to fish. Also looking for good salmon waters in and around central Scotland as it's not always practical to travel either to the borders / up north for a day.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Cheers

Welcome to the forum, i fish swanswater regularly myself, other fisheries i tend to visit mostly are North Third, Lake of Menteith, Bangour, you are spolied for choice, there are so many, Wellsfield, New Haylie, Linlithgow, Howwood etc.

I don't do any salmon fishing these days, but again, you have the Forth, The Teith, Leven and the endrick almost within casting distance, i used to fish those.

Best regards
Jim

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Tanta Stultitia Mortalium Est

welcome aboard nice to have another scot along for the ride!

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The scenery in the Grand Coulee area of eastern Washington was worth the air fare on its own!

Welcome to the Forum rnb

BK

Hi , some good advice on here, Enjoy


Cheers
Spencer

Welcome to the forum, enjoy.

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Eddie
"We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation."
Voltaire

Thanks Jim, being from the borders and relatively new to fishing this area I was not aware of so many great fisheries etc around about me. How do they all rate compared to Swanswater? I understand that it is all on the day etc but its not just about the catching for me. Its about being out in my own wee bubble enjoying the peace and quiet.

rnb hard to compare them as they are mostly very different types of fisheries, and you should find peace and quiet at them all, but here we go.

Well with Swanswater, as you know you have the top pond, Swanswater itself (Dam) around ten acres i think, which is kill ticket only, the other two (Meadow & Millpond) you can fish either kill or catch n Release, and if fishing a kill ticket on the main pond, after you bag up, you can de-barb and fish the other two C&R. There are lots of arguments about wether all 3 should be C&R but on a personal note i think Alisdair has a good balance there, allowing the options that he has in place, and as the fish are usually in the top few feet of the water it provides good sport.

North Third 120 acres, so by sheer size alone you can't compare it to swanswater, does both bank or boat fishing, fishes quite well from the bank, they also do an all day C&R ticket, which i believe is only around a tenner, it's stocked weekly, and the owner George Holdsworth, is always willing to discuss flies, tactics, which areas are fishing well etc, it makes sense as he wants you to enjoy your day, and come back, boat fishing is a little dearer which can run into around thirty pounds with outboard (with a rather large 20fish boat limit) for a limit of 10 fish per person per boat.

Lake of Menteith, 700 acres and stocked weekly with around 1500 trout so by sheer size alone you obviously can't compare it to swanswater either, regarded by some as Central scotland's prime trout fishery, boat only fishing, and they encourage you to return fish, from memory you can take a 10 limit per boat, (if you eat trout), day boat fee is somewhere around £44 (£24 for single angler subject to availability) rather large fishery to fish on your own for the first time IMHO, but once you get to know the spots, you can have some cracking days sport there.

Bangour run by Stevie Reid who's also a casting instructor, and he's not hard to get along with, it's a a nicely located old water supply dam around Livingston, that iirc (if i recall correctly) used to be a water supply, possibly for a hospital or village, kill tickets and C&R sold here, Stevie keeps well on top of things here, and like swanswater it has some really good hard fighting fish, some monsters too, unlike swanswater anything over 10lb (and brownies too iirc) must be returned, if fishing C&R here don't ever handle the fish, stevie will supply you with a large net, keep them in the water and unhook them, give them time to recover and slip the net down and release them (common sense really) as with all fisheries check their rules.

Wellsfield (which is not far from swanswater) is a kill ticket water only, (which IMHO is a shame), if you reach your bag you either purchase another ticket, or go home early.

New Haylie, is a bit further afield at Largs, and sits right on a hill overlooking largs, you'll rarely get there when it's not windy, i haven't managed it yet, but you can have some great sport here, last time i fished it, was at the fff day out, the time before it was almost blowing a gale but i had, i think it was 8 on C&R as the fish always seem to be switched on and up for it, windy or not, again unlike swanswater anything over 5lb i believe is to be returned safely.

Linlithgow, haven't fished this yet but will hopefully put that right shortly.

Howwood my bogie water is just down by renfrew, i only ever manage 1 or 2 fish here, but that will keep me going back as i'm a determined sod and i wont let it beat me, just as with any water once you get the hang of it, you should crack it, they do both kill and C&R tickets.

You'll likely find current fishing reports on all or most of these fisheries on the forum, good luck, and welcome to Central Scotland.

Best regards
Jim

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Tanta Stultitia Mortalium Est

Wow, thank you very much Jim. That is a superb and comprehensive round up and I appreciate the time you have taken to write that up. You have certainly given me some food for thought. I am looking to increase my fishing so will certainly be looking at all the waters you have listed.

Once again thank you very much.