I was wondering if anybody from or near Edinburgh ever fishes the Water Of Leith. It used to be stocked by the city council and season permits were free from the city chambers. It starts at Harperrig reservoir and flows into the Forth Estuary at Leith.

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A Bad Days Fishing Is Better Than A Good Day At Work

I fish the Water of Leith, great trout stream only spoiled by the council's stocking of it Plenty of grayling as well but your not allowed to fish for them outwith the trout season

I posted a set of photos from one of my outings this year:-

http://www.flyforums.co.uk/showthrea...ighlight=leith

Norm

I've lived on its banks all my life and fished it since I was a youngster.Lucky if I fish it more than twice a season these days,I think its a shadow of what it used to be.There is nothing like the head of fish there once was in the river and the fly hatch has dwindled also.
Being an urban stream it was always a bit prone to stick throwing dog owners etc,...more so now that the council has built the walkway down the length of the river.Its difficult to get a bit of peace to fish properly.

Nice wee river with some lovely fish, quiet bits are hard to find but if you dont mind a bit of noise and dogs and people asking what you are doing every five minutes then stockbridge has some good bits, i have had trout up to 1lb and some very nice (8-12oz) grayling! nothing big but great sport

For a bit more peace n quiet head up past balerno, again some cracking bits and a better chance of a bigger fish.

I was told of a guy taking 3 fish around 3-5lb from the weir opposite country life on a cats whisker, infact it was one of the guys in the shop that said it but i dont know if it was true or not.

Well worth a visit

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[B][COLOR="Black"]"Bang Tidy"
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I live on the river, and walk or fish it most days, so its the perfect subject for my first slightly nervous post!
The water of leith is a fantastic stream, and rewards careful fishers with great sport. I find i need to fish 16/18/20 dries on 2lb tippet to have any success.it is however under tremendous pressure,as it is only a small stream, flows through a city of 500,000 people with all their detritus,and its resiliance amazes me.just sit and watch for a while and the plastic bottles and garden refuse will float past. I see a heron every 500 yards or so, and although I dont know quite how much they can catch, 1 fish a week seems a poor return on all that patient stalking! multiply that by 52 weeks, and the 3 along my small strectch would take care of at least 150 trout!
as for the reports of huge fish, the council made a big stocking (word has it around 2000) of pound sized fish this year, and seemed to include a lot of biggies amongst them. I heard lots of guys talk about 4 and 5 pounders, seems a bit daft really when the stream would benefit more from lots of wee ones.

ive just recently moved to edinburgh for uni and i live 20 mins walk from the little river, ive not fished it yet but im lookin forward to it!!!

I wouldn't worry too much about the heron, there have been stacks on the river for decades and they have not managed to erradicate the troots I suspect that the herons take a lot of smaller fish - minnows and bullheads - rather than too many trout and grayling. Personally, I think the biggest danger is the the councils stocking policy The "big" stockies just have to be competing for food, as well as eating the smaller troots. It's a very short sighted policy to stock such big fish and might well lead to the ruin of the river

I had a fish of 3.5lb the season before last. My biggest out the water after 30 years of fishing it, it was well conditioned and fully finned but I can't help think it was a stockie (colouration, depth of body etc) and to me at least, a bit of a disappointement. My best fish before that was around the 2.5lb mark and was a right old warrior, obviously wild and I was proud to catch it.

Norm

There is plenty of fishing round Edinburgh and the Water of Leith is a wee gem. Fish are pretty educated though, so stealth and good presentation are all. I find the nymph and spider can do well on the rare days when there is no hatch.

The Almond at Crammond and out to Kirliston and Newbridge is also worth fishing as are the Esk(s) in Mid Lothian and the Tyne in East Lothian. Even the little Braid Burn has a good head of wee troots, with the odd surprise bigger fish.

However as your their to study I doubt you'll have time to try out all these spots and as for visiting the odd pub.....

Hope you enjoy your stay.

Norm

Agreed on that first point Norm,but Ive never witnessed anything approaching a decent hatch of upwings or stoneflies on the WoL for many years now.Having said that it was never a river that depended on a hatch of aquatic flies in order for us to see plenty of fish rising,as usually they would be feeding on aphids or terrestrials more than anything else.These days I can walk up through all my old haunts on the river without seeing more than a couple of fish showing,when during the mid eighties there would have been literally scores of targets to go for on those same stretches.

Where about on the river are you seeing these hatches....?

Jimmy,

Your right, poor terminolgy on my part, not so much hatch as a "fall of wee terrestrial stuff". Saying that I've seen plenty of olives on the water especially in the spring (Saughton / Roseburn) over the last two years. There also tends to be a hatch of BWO's in the lower reaches in the summer (Warriston down). I've a mate who fishes up at Colinton/balerno who reckons the hatches of upwings are getting better (he fished a hatch of March Browns this year) but I've not fished that bit for a long time. If anything I think the upwing hatches are better than when I was a lad, quite possibly due to the improving water quality. It might also be this that is causing the fish to keep thier heads down a bit more, I'm assuming that there is more subsurface feeding than in the past. Obviously not your experiance though?

However, I agree the fish density has gone down. I reckon its the poor stocking policy that is causing this, the average WoL troot was probably lucky to scrape 4oz and a half pounder was good one. Now I rarely catch anything under the half pound and they are often bigger. Most are apparently wild given the colouration and shape, maybe they just have to grow bigger to compete with the stockies

Norm