Fishing

Fishing is our specialty at Kirkwood.  Its what we are well known for, and we love it.

We not only have our own stretch (beat) of the River Annan – called Kirkwood – but we rent another beat – Jardine Hall – about 8 miles upstream. We can arrange fishing on several other Annan  beats or even  on other rivers like the Nith, and Border Esk.  Even the Rivers Eden and Tweed are not too far distant.  All these rivers, especially the Annan, are well known for salmon and sea trout. The Annan has improved vastly in the last 10 years catching on average over 2,000 salmon from the whole river.  It used to be better known for sea trout but also has some huge wild brown trout. We have a small loch in our woods for stocked trout – mainly for beginners.  There are local fisheries at Moffat and Annan for more stocked trout and stocked coarse fish; but the Annan itself has good wild coarse fish – grayling and chub in particular. Big ones! Grayling over 4lbs have been caught and Chub over 6lbs! Our wild brown trout are also reknowned as huge, with 6lbs-8lbs brownies being caught. Only our sea trout are “normal” – 2lbs on average – because we nearly always get a 20+lbs salmon at least once in a season! Here’s a summary:

Don’t just take our word for it! Read the editor of Trout & Salmon magazine’s Experience on the Annan

Here is a map of the main fishing spots on the Kirkwood beat and a video showing the river and the pools is on YouTube.