Most anglers heading to Scotland drive through Dumfries and Galloway without stopping, on the way to somewhere with a more famous name. That is a mistake, and it is one I made for years.
The south west is where Scotland’s coarse fishing lives. Not exclusively, but the concentration is here, and it is a genuinely different proposition to the trout-and-salmon picture most people have of Scottish fishing. If you are a pike, perch, roach or bream angler, this is the part of the country that has something for you.
Why the south west is different
Scotland’s relationship with coarse fish is complicated. Historically much of the country’s angling culture was built around game fish, and coarse species were treated as an inconvenience or worse. That has changed, and the south west is where the change is most visible, with waters managed for coarse angling and organisations actively working on access.
The practical upshot for a visiting angler is that you get big-water pike and perch fishing without the pressure you would find on an equivalent English venue. Space is the luxury here.
Loch Ken
Loch Ken is the headline water and it deserves the billing. It is one of the most important coarse fishing destinations in Scotland, offering pike and perch fishing of real quality alongside prolific roach and bream sport for match and pleasure anglers.
Access is the thing to research before you go, and I have given Loch Ken its own piece in this series because the permit and rights situation genuinely needs explaining rather than summarising in a paragraph.
The permit question
Scotland does not require the rod licence that England and Wales do. This trips people up in both directions: some assume that means fishing is free, and others assume the English rules apply and go looking for a licence that does not exist.
What you do need is permission from whoever holds the fishing rights, which in practice means a permit from a club, an estate, a shop or an association. On the bigger southern waters the rights can be split between several parties along different banks, so the honest answer to “do I need a permit here” is that it depends exactly where you are standing.
Our Scotland loch fishing guide covers the permit system in more detail, and it is worth reading before a first trip.
What to bring
For pike, a standard UK deadbait setup transfers directly. Big water, so bring the ability to fish at range as well as close in, and expect to spend more time finding fish than you would on a small English gravel pit. Our deadbaiting guide and best baits for pike both apply without modification.
For perch, drop shot and small lures work as they do anywhere, and there is enough featureless water that a boat or a willingness to walk pays for itself. See drop shot fishing for perch.
For roach and bream, standard feeder and float approaches. This is the fishing that surprises visitors most, because the stamp of fish in some of these waters is very good and almost nobody talks about it.
Worth the detour
The south west will not give you the scenery of the Highlands and it does not have the reputation. What it has is space, quality coarse fishing, and a short drive from the border. If you are coming up from northern England, you can be fishing within a couple of hours of leaving home rather than committing to a full day of driving.
Tomorrow I will go through Loch Ken properly, including the access situation, which is the part people get wrong.
Dan Whitfield started fishing aged seven on the canal at the end of his road and never really stopped. He spent his twenties and thirties on the match circuit – club level rather than national – before deciding he’d rather catch one decent fish than a net of small ones.
These days he mostly fishes the River Trent for barbel (personal best 14lb 2oz), the Oxford Canal for roach and skimmers in winter, and the occasional gravel pit when tench are spawning and the surface fishing is too good to miss. He’s a former club secretary and still helps with junior coaching at his local angling club in Nottingham.
At The River Bend, Dan writes the coarse species guides, river fishing technique articles, and the match and pole content.
Covers: Barbel, bream, roach, tench, carp (coarse context), river fishing, canal fishing, feeder, float, match/pole