Stenhouse Trout Fishery is, I believe a fairly long-established commercial trout fishery just behind Burntisland in Fife. It is open all year round and allows both bank and boat fishing on a roughly oval doughnut shaped reservoir. I hear the water has a reputation amongst anglers as a great buzzer water, and that is fishes particularly well in winter and early in the season when the water can be very clear and weed growth has either died out or hasn’t got too established.
Finding Stenhouse Trout Fishery
The water is fairly easy to find and can be reached by car in about 10-15 minutes from the M90 Motorway. Once on the road, the A909, that passes the entrance, you will see a few notices indicating the entrance to the Trout fishing and the fishery has a large easy to see sign right at the entry. Just watch, as you approach on the A909 the turning into the entrance from the north direction is fairly sharp and if in a bigger vehicle, slow right down. I would not be tempted to swing out into the road, as ahead of you appears to be a fairly blind bend and you would give oncoming vehicles little time to react.
Access
Access is easy enough, if a little bumpy in places but should not be an issue for most vehicles. Well signed and with plenty of parking there should not be an issue.
Public Transport
No obvious signs of bus routes or bus stop at the entrance to the fishery, as it is a fairly narrow B road I would be surprised if any come along this way. If arriving by Public transport I imagine heading to Burntisland by Bus or Train would be your best bet, then taking a taxi out to the Fishery. Let me know if I am wrong on any of this and I will amend.
Details
Stenhouse Trout Fishery is a moderately sized reservoir to the north of Burntisland. I would estimate it to being 40 acres or so, in size ( I am not particularly good at estimating acreages!). It is an oval shape with an island that I imagine was once the top of a small hillock before they dammed and flooded this hollow, nestled under a wooded hill to the South East. I do not think the loch is especially deep, by my reckoning it is probably a relatively level 12 feet or so. I say this based on there being anchors on the boats that have pretty short chains and ropes on and on my visit never had any bother getting the anchor to dig in on the silty bottom. The west end gets fairly shallow and when I visited (mid-summer) had fairly dense sub-surface weeds that made taking a boat with an outboard in a bit of a problem with tangling. Whether you could reasonably fish here when it is like this is also a question, you might be able to fish a dry fly between the weeds but if you hooked a fish I am not sure you could get it to the net. I was a little surprised that the dam end of the loch was also quite heavily weeded up, I suspect the dam structure has a fairly shallow rake to it and the weed is able to get a hold in the wall. You can drift or anchor as suits your preference, most anglers seemed to anchor so you would need to take this into account if you are making a drift. The 12 boats DO NOT come with outboards, though rowing is not an issue really on a water this size, and with the island it must always be possible to get a bit of shelter if the wind was particularly strong. If you have an electric outboard you are best to bring your own. The boat moorings are good with easy walkway access to the boats which each have their own berth. The fishery does feature on the competition circuit such as it is in our sport, and hosts the Scierra pairs and I understand runs a winter league
Panoramic view of Stenhouse Trout Fishery
Facilities
The Fishery has a small lodge that looked to have a small selection of fishing consumables available. There are 12 boats served by a docking pier, and each boat comes with oars, one net and two anchors.
Species: Rainbow and Blue Trout are regularly stocked and seem to be of very high quality. I imagine there will be wild Browns in a water like this too.
Rules: Only restriction I am aware of was no Boobies, fair enough though I tend to feel a bit unnecessary with boat fishing.
Value for Money
Not bad, I think we were charged £48 for a day boat from 09:00 to 16:00 including 2 fish per angler and Catch and Release thereafter. The boats come with oars and a net, but no drogue or outboard, so that’s about average pricing I would say. I have not seen a price list published anywhere online to gauge other options. They also have bank fishing that I would assume are priced accordingly.
Catch and Release Policy
Catch and Release is allowed and while I don’t know offhand, imagine you can get a C&R only permit.
Website
No dedicated web presence that I am aware of please correct me if I am wrong on this but I have done a few Google searches and turned up only references to the fishery and a facebook page. The facebook page while providing contact information and some commentary on the fishery and stocking, does lack much information on the prices and facilities on offer. It is good to have a social media presence but if you are running a business without a dedicated site and depending on something like facebook you need to treat it like a website and put all the relevant information in with opening times, pricelists etc. Bear in mind that while most folk have internet access these days, lots of people don’t use facebook, and I hadn’t even heard of Stenhouse until last year and I am fully “connected”.
Facebook page: Stenhouse Trout Fishery
Personal Opinion
A nice location which on my visit ( early July) was marred by a bloom of algae which reduced in-water visibility to practically zero. At least it wasn’t the kind that cakes your flies in green slime and needs to be cleaned off every cast. How much this affects the fishing is hard to quantify. While we were aware the water had just been restocked, fish were hard to find, possibly because they couldn’t see your flies. Truthfully I am really not sure how big a factor this is as I have fished places that have had worse blooms and done quite well in spite of them.On my visit though they did not seem particularly inclined to show themselves and it was very hard going. I do believe it is a great location in winter and early season, and maybe it would be better visited then. It has a bit of a reputation as a great buzzer water and I think I would need to have another better timed visit to assess The thing with algal blooms is they come and go sometimes literally overnight and it is very hard to know when they will appear or disappear. I did see the fishery has apparatus for removing the weed that grows in the shallower areas so presumably, this is something they tackle regularly. The fish that were caught were all in pristine condition and great quality, so no complaints there. There was plenty of fly life in and on the water so there is clearly plenty natural feeding for the fish. I am at this point in time reluctant o give the fishery any particular overall score as I don’t think the conditions I visited in were really a fair assessment of the water and would reserve judgement until a later date when I am able to call again.
I was interested to read your comments on Stenhouse Reservoir the algae is a problem when there are long hot spells and has just reopened having had to shut a couple of weeks ago . It has changed hands and Jason Walls and Andy Weir now run it having taken over from the Callisons early this year . It is a good loch all year round without the algae . I fish it through the winter and find it fishes well . The stocking policy has improved and there are many 5lb plus Rainbows to be found
That’s useful to know. The mention of the Algae when I was there was just that, a mention, lots of places suffer similarly in high summer and I guess we were just unlucky the time we happened to be there.So it was in no way a major criticism. I have fished place like this on occasions and even with the algae they can fish well. One of the people who was there that day did really well, there seemed to be one particular corner that was holding fish! Great to here you are getting good sport over there. All the best.