Ian Griffin

For Stillwater & River Ribble locations, local hostelries can be found nearby offering fine accommodation (details can be forwarded if required).
Residential courses are held at Friars Carse Country House Hotel in Auldgirth, Dumfries. The hotel is a baronial-style castle, with 21 bedrooms. Generally, all guests on the courses stay in the hotel, but there are two cottages within the grounds that can be used as well. All meals are served in the main restaurant. It has a lovely wood-panelled entrance hall, an elegant staircase, a lounge with an open fire for the chilly days, a spacious restaurant, and a snooker room with a full-sized table. Fishing guests at the hotel can make use of the downstairs facility for storing and drying their gear.

Stillwater Day: Meet and greet at the lake to discuss your fishing experience and how we will structure the day. Check out your casting skills and work on any that we both agree need some adjustment. Then, get fishing.

River Day: Meet and greet at local pub (due to the location of the beat, it’s tricky to find the cabin). Discuss your fishing experience and how we will structure the day. Review any casts that you may need and how and when to use them. Decide which species were going to target and walk to the top of the beat and fish down before lunch. Repeat the process in the afternoon.

Residential Course River: Meet and greet, then walk the beat and identify where the likely holding spots may be for the different species. Set up rods and practice any casting that may be required. H & S brief of river conditions daily. Daily fishing break for morning coffee, if required, in for lunch just after mid-day, and then back out on the river.

Stillwater guiding takes place on a small lake deep in the Cheshire countryside in a village called Wincle in the Peak District. The owner of this small, intimate lake keeps it well-stocked with rainbows, browns, blues, and sparctic trout. The village boasts a great pub as well as a small microbrewery.

River guiding on the River Ribble in Lancashire takes place just outside the village of Whalley. The beat is about 1 ½ miles long in the rolling countryside of the Ribble Valley. These private syndicate waters are not heavily fished and contain target species of grayling, wild and stocked brown trout, sea trout, and Atlantic salmon.

Residential Courses take place on the River Nith in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, with accommodation at Friars Carse Country House Hotel, a baronial-style castle set on a 45-acre estate, which boasts its own 1 ½ miles of single-bank fishing. The target species here are grayling, wild brown trout, sea trout, and Atlantic salmon.

Do I need my own kit for any of these days?
If you have one, all the better (as that is what you will be using when on your own), but don’t worry if you don’t—we have kit for you to use. Just let us know when booking.

Do I need to pay for permits to fish?
If fishing the Stillwater or River Ribble, you will need the correct Environmental Agency License for the species that you are fishing for. We can advise you on this upon booking. No such license is required in Scotland.

Can I keep anything that I catch?
For Stillwater, a brace of trout may be taken (except browns). For River, a brace of browns or sea trout is allowed per day. 1 salmon per season. For the River Nith, ALL fish must be released.

Do you do individual days on the River Nith in Scotland?
Yes, subject to availability and agreed costs.