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The Fishing Enviroment

LOCH LEVEN FISHERIES – ANNOUNCEMENT

Faced with mount­ing losses totalling over £500,000 in the last five years, Loch Leven
Fish­er­ies is now in a pos­i­tion where it is forced to announce a sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion in its
angling oper­a­tion on Loch Leven from the end of the cur­rent sea­son.
The Fishery’s hatch­ery and rear­ing ponds at Tar­hill on the north shore of Loch Leven will
be closed down and decom­mis­sioned at the end of the sea­son. All of the Loch Leven
brown trout, cur­rently being reared there, will be released either dir­ectly into the loch or
into its feeder streams depend­ing on their stage of devel­op­ment. Loch Leven will revert to being a nat­ural brown trout loch, with its trout pop­u­la­tion depend­ent on nat­ural recruit­ment from the burns.

The num­ber of clubs and indi­vidual anglers fish­ing Loch Leven has been declin­ing stead­ily over the last dec­ade but the rate of decline has undoubtedly accel­er­ated over more recent years partly due to the well-publicised prob­lems asso­ci­ated with the stock­ing of rain­bow trout which was ceased in 2004. Loch Leven has found it dif­fi­cult to com­pete on equal terms with the grow­ing num­ber of much smal­ler, bet­ter stocked, fisheries.

The Scot­tish Exec­ut­ive, on advice from SNH, have repeatedly turned down applic­a­tions from the Fish­ery for a licence to shoot cor­mor­ants which have increas­ingly found fresh­wa­ter
fish­er­ies such as Loch Leven easier pick­ings than their tra­di­tional feed­ing grounds in the
North Sea and the dam­age they have been caus­ing is con­sid­er­able.
With the clos­ure of the hatch­ery and rear­ing ponds, which are cost­ing in excess of £80,000
per annum, Loch Leven will no longer be arti­fi­cially stocked from the end of the cur­rent
sea­son and it is inev­it­able that this will res­ult in a fur­ther sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion in the
num­ber of clubs and indi­vidual anglers wish­ing to fish on Loch Leven in 2007 and bey­ond.
Most of the cur­rent 30 strong fleet of boats oper­ated by the fish­ery will no longer be
required and will be dis­posed of next winter. How­ever, it should be stressed that this is not
the end of fish­ing on Loch Leven – a small num­ber of boats will be retained for next
sea­son and bey­ond for those anglers still wish­ing to fish on the loch.
It is sadly ironic that this announce­ment comes at a time when the loch is fish­ing as well as
it has for many a year. How­ever, the eco­nomic real­ity is such that the loch has to be
allowed to revert to being a nat­ural brown trout fish­ery once more, as it was prior to 1983
when declin­ing catches promp­ted the estab­lish­ment of the hatch­ery and rear­ing ponds at
Tar­hill.
It is hoped that the nat­ural recruit­ment from the burns will improve over the next few years
lead­ing to an improve­ment in the fish­ing and as a res­ult to an increas­ing demand for
boats. Addi­tional boats would then be gradu­ally added to the fleet.
Loch Leven Fish­er­ies will endeav­our with, it is hoped, the help of the other agen­cies
involved to ensure the sur­vival of Loch Leven and its renowned trout in the future.

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