Pike fishing in Dumfries and Galloway
I have just come back from a long weekend fishing, mainly for pike, in Dumfries and Galloway,
Having scoured the net trying to find information on 2 of the Lochs , Loch Woodhall and Mossdale Loch, without much success, i wanted to give some information back to like minded people.
The 3 lochs we fished were Loch Ken, Woodhall Loch and Mossdale Loch.
There is lots of sites telling all about Loch Ken, the mythical 72 pounder that was caught years ago, the truth is now, its a hard loch to produce pike from the bank, we fished from the Loch Ken holiday park, which i know is probably the worse place to pike fish from, we stayed in a static caravan, 5 of us on total, and the fishing was free as we had booked a caravan, the van was really good, and an excellent base from which to fish the other 2 lochs, total amount for the caravan was 165 for 3 nights, which was 35 odd pounds each, not bad.
We started fishing Ken, and we had pike rods out, with box standard ledgered baits, mackeral and roach but had no runs through the day.
We also had feeders out and was catching roach to hand size, and chub also to hand size.
I have fished the Ken for 15 odd years, and its the first time we had ever caught Chub, we thought the Chub may have been introduced to help with the American red Crayfish problem in Loch Ken?
Loch Ken bridge from the Caravan site. |
Loch Ken signal red crayfish. |
We did catch a few Crayfish and killed them on the bank.
Mossdale Loch
Mossdale Loch is about 15/20 mins drive from the caravan park, we drove over Ken Bridge and found the Loch past New Galloway and just into Mossdale, we went to the Post office/shop and got the day tickets.
Day tickets -
10 from the bank, 3 rods.
15 per person, 2 on a boat. for the day on a rowing boat.
The life jackets and the oars are given to you from the shop keeper, a really helpful man if you have 2 hours to spare ( i don't think he sees many people)
The ONLY place to fish this loch from the bank is at the wooden getty that the boats are from, there is no access to the Loch, its boggy peat, and you will dissapear up to your waist!!
There are lots of lillys at the peg, and is ok for 2 to fish comfortably, but not 3.
There are 2 boats to hire, next time we will book 2, i phoned the week before and booked, but there was no need, its not fished much/
On the boat the lads had Jack on spinners and plugs,perch on maggot and spinner,we was told that there are trout, but they are at the other end of the Loch,
The loch was very peaceful and a welcome break from Loch Ken noise, we caught pike to about 10lbs from the bank, 4 in total, and they were almost black due to the high levels of Peat in the water,
Baits used were Roach and skimmers, 2 pike were caught again hard on the bottom, bottom was snag free, but the amount of lillys made for hard work as the Pike crashed into these as soon as they felt the hooks! 2 to float fished baits, there is a ledge 10 feet or so out, good solid takes,
Jetty from where to bank fish. |
Recently fished Woodhall - very good pike fishing BUT I decided to keep a medium sized pike and was sworn and abused by an angler who took exception to my killing a fish. Beware anglers from kilmarnock.
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