Loch Leven is one of those places where the fishing history is heavy enough that people get nervous before they have made a cast. Do not. It is a wild brown trout loch that rewards patience and punishes fidgeting, and the fundamentals are the same as anywhere else. What is different is that it will not hand you anything.
The fishing operates from the main pier at Kinross, at the south west corner of the loch, and the whole thing is built around a fleet of boats. There is no bank fishing on the loch, and all the wild brown trout fishing is fly only. That is not a house preference, it is the rule.
The season and the rules
The season runs from April through to early October. All brown trout under eleven inches must go back, which is a size limit worth internalising before you are holding a fish and doing mental arithmetic over the side of a boat.
Pike fishing is also available on the loch alongside the trout, which surprises people who only know Leven by reputation as a fly water.
What the fishing is actually like
Wild browns behave differently to stocked rainbows and it catches people out. They are less inclined to chase, more responsive to a fly that arrives naturally, and far more sensitive to the boat. On a bright still day they will move away from a badly handled drift long before you cover them.
Traditional loch style is the method: a team of three wets on a floating or slow intermediate line, fished on a relatively short line off the front of a drifting boat, with the top dropper worked in the surface at the end of the retrieve. The take often comes as the flies lift. If you strike at it like a river angler you will pull the fly out of the fish’s mouth all day and blame the fishing.
Let the rod load. Lift into it rather than snapping at it. This is the single thing that separates people who get on at Leven from people who do not.
When there is a proper wave on, the fishing usually improves. Leven in a flat calm in July is a hard day for anyone.
Booking and facilities
Boats are booked online, and information about the fishing is at fishlochleven.co.uk. Prices have been running at £60 for a full boat and £40 for a single angler, and those rates hold at weekends too, which is unusual and welcome.
The Loch Leven Angling Centre by the harbour has toilets and changing facilities, and the Boathouse Restaurant and its coffee shack sit right beside the harbour with food, drink and a licensed bar. As somewhere to end a cold day, it is considerably better than the average fishery hut.
Tackle
A 10ft rod for a #6 is the classic loch style tool and it is the right choice here. You want the length to hold a top dropper in the surface at the end of the retrieve, and that is genuinely harder with a 9ft rod.
Floating line, and a slow intermediate as the backup. Leader of around fifteen feet with three flies. Traditional patterns still work: soft hackled wets, a bushy dry-ish pattern on the top dropper, something drab in the middle. There is no need to be clever.
Take a drogue if the boat does not come with one, or expect to be blown through good water too quickly to fish it properly.
Is it worth it
Yes, but go with the right expectations. Leven is not a numbers water and it is not trying to be. It is a wild fishery where a handful of good browns is a proper day and a blank in difficult conditions is not a disgrace.
If you want the day to be about catching, fish Lake of Menteith instead and come to Leven when you want the fishing to ask you something. Our brown trout species guide covers what the fish are doing through the season, which helps more here than at a stocked water.
Sarah Marsh came to fly fishing through her father, who kept a rod on a small syndicate water in Devon. She spent her teens fishing stocked reservoirs and gradually worked her way toward wild fish on moving water – first on rain-fed freestone rivers in Wales, then on the Hampshire chalk streams she now considers home water.
She holds a level 2 APGAI fly casting qualification and guides informally on the River Test and, from June to September, on a private beat on the River Tay for Atlantic salmon. Her personal best brown trout came from the Itchen at 4lb 1oz; she’d sooner not talk about the salmon that came off at the net last August.
At The River Bend, Sarah writes the game fish species guides, fly fishing technique articles, and the legal content covering trout and salmon regulations.
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