It has been one of the very best seasons for fishing on Loch Leven for many a year.  Although generally regarded in the middle of the last century as being one of the world's foremost brown trout fisheries, Loch Leven's reputation has been in decline for the last 30 years until very recently.  Deteriorating water quality as a result of factors such as increased population within the catchment and changing agricultural practices resulted in prolific blooms of algae from increased levels of phosphates and nitrates in the water.  The loch's nadir was 13th June 1992 (or Scum saturday as it became known) when an outbreak of blue-green algae hit the national headlines.  The resulting furore caused a host of agencies to come together as the Loch Leven Area Management Group to work out a recovery plan for what is one of scotland's most important inland waters.  To give credit where it is due, the results of the action plan put in place by this group have been dramatic and now, almost 20 years on, the water quality has improved dramatically with the loadings of phosphates / nitrates falling by over 60% on pre 1992 levels.  The improving water quality has led to the loch's entire ecosystem coming back to live in an extraordinary way and its world renowned brown trout are not alone in thriving again.

The recovery in fortunes of our fishery first started to manifest itself a couple of years ago with fish numbers being caught starting to rise and so too , equally importantly, the quality of the fish.  By 2010, old timers within the angling community who had fished Loch Leven for generations, were reporting that the fish being caught were in stunning condition and as good as they could ever recall them being in.  The trout were obviously revelling in the improved water quality where food sources were abundant.

This season just finishing has seen even more powerful evidence that Loch Leven's fortunes as a wild brown trout fishery are on what hopefully is a sustained upward trend, namely greatly increased numbers of fish being caught by anglers.  They are still a demanding quarry but even when relatively unsuccessful in attrracting them onto the hook, anglers have usually reporting having seen large numbers of fish of all sizes moving or rising to the fly.

However the highlight of the season undoubtedly came in early September (4th).  Mid Sunday afternoon and the airwaves around Loch Leven began to hum – someone had caught a monster trout on Loch Leven which was going to tip the scales north of 11 lbs!  The angling community surely is not normally prone to exaggeration but we did get slightly ahead of ourselves on this occasion.  In the event, Michael Mackenzie from East Whitburn in West Lothian weighed in a magnificent brown trout which tipped the scales at 9 lbs 6.125 ozs (to be exact!). 

The fish caught yesterday by Michael on 4th September is the largest fish caught on Loch Leven for almost exactly 100 years.  In what is an extraordinary coincidence, the largest brown trout ever caught on the loch was that caught by Colonel John Scott on what this coming Thursday will be exactly 100 years ago (8th September 1911).  Colonel Scott from Callander near Stirling landed one that weighed in at 9 lbs 13 ozs that day although he reputedly foul hooked his fish through the back fin and it gave him and his two boatmen (John Flockhart and his son John) a lively 2 hours before it was safely in the boat. 

However, the same cannot be said of Michael Mackenzie who caught his one yesterday near to the East Buoy while fishing with his club, the West Lothian Fly Dressers.  For the anglers, the fish was caught on a black deer hair snail imitation and took 20 'anxious' minutes to land – they even had to start the engine to motor after it when it took off!  The line Michael was using was a full floater.  

For the record, yesterday's brown trout measured 760mm (30 inches) and Marine Scotland laboratories in Pitlochry reported back, having examined the sample of scales sent to them for analysis, that the cock fish appeared to be nearly 9 years old.

With several large brown trout, not much smaller than this specimen, being caught in the 4 weeks since then, every likelihood is that the 10 lbs barrier for a brown trout on Loch Leven is going to be broken in all probability next season. Legend has it that a 10 pounder measuring 29 inches and 18 inches in girth was caught while trolling to a minnow to the west of St Serfs Island.  However trolling 'is not cricket' and what we all desparately want to see is a specimen over 10 lbs being caught to the fly and taking its place next to Colonel Scott's beauty in a case in our Boathouse Bistro. 

Roll on April 2012 and the start of the brown trout fishing season on Loch Leven! 

We were delighted to stage the first ever 9 hole PowerPlay Golf event in Scotland last Friday here at Kinross . Despite the fairly miserable weather on the day, a very impressive field of 130 golfers took part including 11 juniors. 

The gray, wet conditions did not seem to dampen the enthusiasm of everyone who took part and everyone agreed that this new, shortened version of golf with the added element of strategy was enormous fun.  With every green having two flags / pin positions with the easy white flag and the difficult black flag.  Whoever decided on some of the black flag positions on the day undoubtedly has sadistic tendencies with that at the 8th hole in particular proving a huge challenge, set up as it was on a small raised plateau at the back of the green.

The scoring essentially uses the stableford points scoring system with double points being scored if you elect to play to the more difficult black flag and score a net par or better on that hole.  Every golfer has to elect to play 3 PowerPlays to the black flags within the first 8 holes and you have to declare it before you tee off on that particular hole.  The 9th & final hole poses a further risk / reward decision for golfers because anyone can opt for an additional (optional) 4th PowerPlay but on this occasion, if you then fail to get a net bogey or better, you actually lose 3 points – and yes, yours truly played it like a muppet and lost 3 points!

One of the main highlights of the day was the extremely generous sponsorship of Western Saab of Perth who offered 4 different unbelievable prizes for a hole-in-one at each of the white & black flags at the two par 3 short holes, the 3rd & the 7th.  The star attraction however was a Saab Convertible sitting on a plinth beside the 3rd green waiting for someone to  get a hole-in-one to the black flag for someone who had nominated that they were playing a PowerPlay.  It is a tricky hole at the best of times and the black flag position was pretty tough so under normal circumstances few of us would have selected that hole for one of our 3 PowerPlay holes – but most of us did anyway because we wanted to win the car!  Sadly nobody managed it although one group of 3 players unbelievably all played their balls to within 4 feet of the hole with the closest rolling gently past the hole and ending up a mere 15 inches away – so unlucky!  Me? I didn’t even trouble the green (even with my 2nd shot!).

Despite the wet conditions, there was some extremely high quality golf played.  At least 2 golfers managed to record a net albatross on a nominated PowerPlay hole to notch up 10 points on that hole alone.  One of those players, Ronnie McHale (9 handicap) actually went on to take overall honours on the day which I dare say should not come as a major surprise, particularly as he notched up a further 10 points on the following 2 holes (ie 20 points in total on the 4th, 5th & 6th holes).

The final results were as follows:

Men                                               Handicap                Strokes Received                  Points

1. Ronnie McHale                     9                                    5                                     31
2. Andrew Lockhart                   6                                    3                                     30
3. Jim Wardrope                        4                                    2                                     30
4. Roy Houston                         12                                   6                                     30
5. Tom Deacon                         18                                   9                                     29

Ladies

1. Deborah Rettie                    22                                 11                                     27
2. Trish Anderson                    27                                 14                                     25
3. Audrey Thomson                 21                                  11                                    23

Juniors

1. Ogilvie Robertson               11                                   6                                     26
2. Cameron Donaldson          10                                   5                                     25
3. Matthew Smith                     8                                    4                                     23

Team Event

1. Aly McGregor, Steven Hind & Scott Cook

All in all, and despite the inclement weather, both the event and the novel golfing format were deemed a great success and we are already planning to hold a bigger and better event next year over 18 holes, split into 2 separate 9 hole circuits.  If you did not play in our event last week, you ought to make certain you do so next year because it is a really fun way for golfers of all standards to play and enjoy themselves.

Daybreak TV will be recording Kinross's latest celebrity sensation, The Singing Butcher, next week.  Filming will commence in Singing Butcher, Iain Hunter’s shop (Hunters of Kinross) at around 11am next Monday morning (Monday 15th August) before he heads to the Green Hotel Golf and Leisure Resort where he will sing live for approximately 30-45 minutes in our Market Park opposite our two Scottish resort hotels.

The resulting show will be aired the following day on Daybreak TV, on Tuesday morning, the 16th of August.

About The Singing Butcher

Iain Hunter AKA "The Singing Butcher" recently got his big break after being discovered during the latest T in the Park Festival by Radio presenter Cat Harvey.  This led to his big break on the Real Radio show just days later.

Iain has been singing since he was 5 years old but never put his latent talent to use until now.

As well as his performance on the Real Radio show, he recently performed in front of 350 people at the Green Family Hotel Resort's waterside restaurant, The Boathouse Bistro - sporting his own sausages at our barbecue.

Iain's sausages will be playing an active role in his performance at 12pm in the Market Park, or rather in a roll to be precise!

Be sure to come down and listen to Iain's wonderful voice and sample one of his sausages in a roll. Looking forward to seeing you all on Monday.

The Green Hotel Golf & Leisure Resort is delighted to be hosting the inaugural Kinross PowerPlay Golf Open to be played on Friday 9th September 2011 over our very own Bruce Course at Kinross.

PowerPlay Golf was launched as an exciting new golf concept in May 2011 at Celtic Manor with a host of professionals including Gary Player, Ian Poulter and John Daly competing over the 9 hole format in front of the Sky Sports cameras.

Played over 9 holes instead of the normal 18, PowerPlay Golf is an exciting, high-pressure form of the sport which gives golfers two flags to aim at on every green. You score extra points if you ‘PowerPlay’ to the Black Flag, which is in an extra-hard position – often close to hazards such as bunkers or ponds.

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The Kinross PowerPlay Golf Open is open to everyone to enter. The entry fee (per 9 hole round) is £10 for adults and £5 for Juniors. Players can enter and play the 9 holes as often as they want during the day - in order to improve on their previous best.  First tee time is 7.30am and last tee time is 5pm. 

Separate competitions will be run for Men (max h'cap 28), Ladies (max 36), Junior Boys (max 36) and Junior Girls (max 36). In addition to entering individually, there will also be prizes for the best teams (3 players).  There will be a host of wonderful prizes for each of these categories and every entrant will receive a goody bag worth £15.

We are delighted that Western SAAB, SRixon and Tullibardine Distillery will be the official sponsors. Both par 3 holes will have wonderful Hole-in-One prizes - you will be able to win a SAAB convertible on one hole and a fabulous holiday for 4 in Portugal on the other.

The underlying principle behind PowerPlay Golf is that it should be exciting and fun - so come along and join us for a great day out.

To secure your entry, telephone 01577 865125 or email golfpro@green-hotel.com