Fished it yesterday, beautiful setting, great facilities, lodge/shop etc but where are the fish? Had 1, our club had only 4 in pretty good conditions. Another club with a few boats out managed only 2 fish between them.
Our largest fish was 13 oz. As I said cracking loch and facilities but at £50 for a 2 man boat we come for the fishing, I think we could do with a few thousand more fish being stocked or the prices reduced.
A problem now for fisheries is that clubs are pretty fickle and will drop a location for the future if it isn't value for moneyfor the fishing. I've spoken with others who had high hopes for Vennachar but have now disregarded it for the future.
I'll be back but hopefully there'll be more fish and of a better size.

For me personally the attraction of the trout fishing has gone downhill since they started stocking heavy, once it was a supplementary stocking with plenty of takeable Wild trout ,now it seems to be trying to compete with the likes of Menteith to be a competition venue (which it probably now is??) . The last time I fished it for trout on Venacher must have been 4-5 years ago and the fishing was good though sometimes difficult in the height of summer, i enjoyed catching fish mainly around 8-120z mark with the very odd better fish and i was content. Now the only reason for me to go there is for its pike. IMO Venacher has sadly become a casualty of commercialism maybe on the plus side you can now get a bacon roll.
Col

£2.90 for a roll you'd be better buyin a packet and cookin it yourself

£2.90 Tourist prices!

Zugbug, Fished Venacher the day after you, good conditions 8 or 9 boats out. Plenty of boats left moored, not a good sign. There was only 3 fish caught as far as I know. Three of the boats were taken by first timers at Venacher. They said they won't be back. I can't blame them £50 a boat is far to expensive. Great scenery but your not paying £50 to look at the views they are free.

Waste of yet another wild loch. There's plenty of put and takes puddles in the central belt without having to resort to chucking stockies in another beautiful wild location Bacon f*****g butties? What next, satellite TV at the 'venue' boathouse?

The boats at Venacher are pretty good and come equipped with petrol motors & fuel, I don't think that £12.50 for the fishing & the same again for boat hire per person for a session is too much. You can pay £25 for a four fish limit at a hole in the ground full of fat flabby finless wonders that were stocked yesterday and will take anything put in front of them but, to me, that's not much fun. However if all you want is a bend in the rod for 8 hours then these places are worth a visit. Would rather fish Venacher with light tackle for wild or naturalised fish any day but would chose the day carefully as sucess obviously weaterh related. Definitely plenty of fish in there, were trout popping up everywhere on occasions when I've been pike fishing.

Cheers

Ben

I dissagree Ben,I'd say most anglers would reckon that the Vennachar prices are too high for the fishing on offer.Call me a miserable git... but I couldnt help feeling like I was paying through the nose for the privilige.

I think it would be a better idea to drop the boat prices and scrap the sessions.£25-£30 for a whole day would be more realistic in my view.This would attract more anglers in my opinion.The management could offset these costs by reducing stocking,in fact why stock at all in the first place...? Surely no-one in their right mind would want to fish a lovely place like Vennachar to catch stockies....

The guy at Carron should have tried the same before going down the rainbow road,sorry for opening old wounds guys...

I fished Vennachar for the first time earlier in the year,it was tough conditions but we caught some really nice fish on dries up in the shallow water at the top end.Its a lovely lodge,excellent clean and tidy boats with good engines and we were greeted on the day by a really pleasant guy who made us feel very welcome.I wish him every success but I think he's going to be really up against it.

I don't have an issue paying £25 for a days fishing, try football or shopping with wife for an expensive day out.

Problem is though Sparkler,most anglers today would rather spend their hard-earned on the bigger fish option rather than catching smaller fish in nicer surroundings,thats a fact.Not my choice personally but I cant blame anybody for making that decision.

Virtually any rainbow fishery today will be stocking at 2lb minimum,I dont think its possible for anyone running a brown trout fishery to compete with that for two reasons.

Firstly brownies are more expensive to grow to a given size than rainbows and secondly most folk who fish with brownies in mind would probably rather not catch stocked browns if at all possible.

To my mind places such as Vennachar and Carron would do better by appealing to those of us who still enjoy catching 10ozs average brownies,there are still plenty of us hopefully,correct me if I'm wrong...?
A good place to start would be to reduce boat prices.

Surely it makes sense to have 10 boats @ £30 out on the fishery rather than two boats out at £50.