The other day I had the pleasure of a days salmon fishing on the famed Lanrick beat of the River Teith. Lanrick is just upstream of Deanston famous for its distillery. The Teith itself is a great salmon and sea trout river with the added bonus of being just 40 mins from Glasgow and Edinburgh. Lanrick is some 3.5 miles long with approximately 1.5 miles of double bank. It reminds me very much of a highland river, shallow for most part and easy to fish at most times of the year with a floating or slow sinking line. Lanrick is in two parts Upper and Lower beats. The lower beat is marked by a famous cauld pool called simply the “Pool” at its bottom limit . This pool must act as a barrier and slow down the movement of fish in very low temperatures and water conditions.
I shared the beat with another rod and only managed to fish a limited number of pools. The “Pool” and “Gravel Bank” are two fantastic pools, in fact I am not doing the place justice as all the pools that I fished that day were great pieces of fly water. The river also has a reputation for big fish, my second largest some 21lb was taken off the Teith albeit further up stream. If my memory serves me right I recollect a fish close to 40lb being taken off Lanrick a few years back.
I wish that I could report that I had caught fish but sadly no salmon, I did however catch a superb brown trout of approximately 2lb from the “Garden Pool” which set my pulse racing for an initial second or two. A down side is that whilst in the fishing hut I noticed a sign that read they practiced total catch and release which I totally support. It then went on to say that any Grayling caught should be killed which is a bit of an archaic view towards our fourth natural game fish. In this day and age we should value all our game fish. If you want a days fishing close to Glasgow and Edinburgh I would strongly recommend Lanrick.