This small corner of Scotland boosts no fewer than three Scottish records for coarse fish with the largest chub, bream and tench ever recorded in Scotland coming from the river or its surrounding still waters.

The bream, roach, tench and pike fishing in the lochs around the historic town of Lochmaben (birth place of Robert the Bruce) is outstanding with some of the fishing free and the rest on very affordable day tickets. In addition There is a number of still waters around Annan and Moffat that are fishable on a day ticket basis.

On the river the main quarry species for the coarse fishermen is the chub, which grow to specimen sizes. There was a report of a 10.5lb fish from Kirkwood caught by a Dr. Cameron, that held the British record for a long time until it was removed. The current Scottish record, which was recorded at Dryfeholm, at just over 6lb, is probably a more realistic picture of the top weights achieved by these fish on the river these days.

Large pike have also been caught, generally by accident, on the river from time to time with the largest recorded fish around 25lb (there are stories of larger fish but they are unauthenticated).