Kielder Water

Kielder Water isn’t a little pool where you can keep an eye on every peg. This Northumberland reservoir covers over 2,000 acres, with around 20 miles of fishable shoreline. That’s a proper expanse of water to get your head round. The fishing is for rainbow trout and wild brown trout, with both bank fishing and motorboat hire available.

• 1 lake: Kielder Water
• Fish: trout
• Tickets from: Full-day permit — £29, eight fish.
• Find it: Hexham · NE48 1BT

Based on how each lake is set up — not a ranking.

Kielder Water isn’t a little pool where you can keep an eye on every peg. This Northumberland reservoir covers over 2,000 acres, with around 20 miles of fishable shoreline. That’s a proper expanse of water to get your head round. The fishing is for rainbow trout and wild brown trout, with both bank fishing and motorboat hire available. If a big reservoir is your sort of thing, there’s plenty here to get excited about.

You’ve got a choice of approaches, too. Fly, spinning and bait fishing are all offered, so it isn’t a fly-only affair. The important bit is matching your method to your permit rather than assuming every ticket works the same way. The sporting permit covers fly and spinning catch-and-release, with an optional two retained fish. Bait fishing has different rules: single hooks are required, and bait catch-and-release isn’t allowed. Sort that before tackling up and save yourself the faff.

For a bank session, permits can be booked online through the operator’s Bookwhen service. Kielder Waterside shop also sells them from 06:00 in season, while Tower Knowe sells bank permits from 10:00, April–October. Parking is included in permit prices, which keeps that part nice and straightforward. There are full-day, concession, afternoon and junior options, so you can pick the ticket that fits the session rather than automatically committing to a full day.

Fancy getting afloat instead? Motorboats are available, but they need booking in advance. The 2026 guide lists boat availability on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, so don’t build a trip around an assumed daily service. Full-day hire is advertised, along with a midweek half-day option during May–September. Boat returns depend on sunset, and the operator asks you to confirm that when booking. Get the actual return time nailed down before planning your last cast.

The 2026 fishing season opened on 7 March, but wild browns have their own season: 1 May–31 October. Daily fishing runs from 06:00–20:00 or sunset, whichever is earlier, so this isn’t somewhere for an overnight session. Wild brown trout under 23cm must go back. You also need to sign in and out, record your catch and stop fishing once you reach your permit’s retained-fish limit. Worth keeping that tally straight as you go.

There’s a handy family option: two under-17s may fish free on an adult’s permit, sharing its catch limit. Anglers aged 12 and over still need their own EA rod licence. Overall, the appeal is the sheer scale and the choice of methods, rather than a long list of different species. Pick bank or boat, sort the right permit and check the seasonal details. That’s the groundwork for a day chasing trout on proper big water.

Good background reading. Most of it is a few years old, so treat it as a starting point and ask on the day.

Videos linked by the fishery

• Our read

  Checked Sept '26 — “Kielder Water is proper big-water trout fishing: over 2,000 acres, around 20 miles of fishable shoreline and the choice of bank or motorboat. Fly, spinning and bait fishing are all offered, with rainbow trout and wild browns to go at.”

This is our own summary of recurring public feedback and the venue details we checked, not a copied customer review or a promise you’ll catch. Feedback changes, so we keep it separate from the Tackle Index score.