If there were a breeding population of large creatures in that lake, or even coming in to that lake, I think we would have found it by now. One would have washed up on shore, or been caught in fishing nets, or something.

People really do believe they are seeing a monster. Most I’m sure are not lying. But what they are seeing are simply things they are misidentifying.

One route, via the Caledonian Canal, is OK for fish if they are feeling lucky. Loch Ness is 52 feet above sea level so there are quite a few lock-gates to pass through. There’s no way large unknown animals will slip through unnoticed.

The other one is the River Ness which is the natural overflow from the lake. There are several weirs and shallow rapid sections, and the river is generally 50 to 100 yards wide but only a few feet deep. Seals get into the lake this way. Some sections are easily observed as it flows through the centre of Inverness city.
There’s a webpage on Dick Raynor’s site that shows some of it – and there’s always GoogleEarth and Streetview.

On another point – the “ocean”, the Inverness and Beauly Firths, where the River Ness and the canal meet salt water is itself very shallow, only a few metres deep for several miles, and has been fished, netted and speared for thousands of years. There are no records of monsters being caught.

It’s hard to say if anything is visiting Loch Ness. I’ve seen a lot of theories as to what the creatures could be. Some are better than others.

I’m sure there are millions of creatures in the oceans, and even in lakes that have yet to be discovered. It would be interesting to drain the lake and see what’s there once and for all. Not possible, I know. But I think that’s the only way to really know for sure.

Also, aren’t the two entrances to Loch Ness from the ocean very shallow, making it hard for something to enter and exit without being seen?

Now this does not discount creatures in other lakes. In Lake Champlain they pick up echo location signals, and there is nothing known in that lake that uses echo location. So there is more evidence that something unknown is living there.”

My response to the first part is that Bob is probably correct, with the emphasis on “colony of large unknown creatures”, but I think there could be some seasonally active fish awaiting detection in the loch. There are of course seals, eels and salmonids visiting the loch from the sea. As for the echo-location in Champlain, “something” was detected by a team on three occasions during a film shoot eight years ago, but they were using unfamiliar equipment in an unfamiliar environment, outside their normal area of expertise, without any control experiments, and the results have never been repeated. An untested daisy-chain of detectors, processors and recorders all running off a boat inverter is a recipe for harmonic mayhem. If the scientific community really thought there were animals echo-locating in the lake the place would be crawling with post-grad zoologists looking for their Ph.D.

“and there is nothing known in that lake that uses echo location” – true, apart from dozens of boats.

Just my thoughts.

For me, it’s hard to take photographic evidence of anything. It’s so easy to fake photos. Especially now a days. And look at the surgeons photo. It fooled everyone for decades, and it was nothing but a toy submarine.

Personally, I’m of the mind that there is nothing in Loch Ness. I used to believe, but it’s been looked at for so long that if there were a colony of large unknown creatures there, they would have been found by now.

Now this does not discount creatures in other lakes. In Lake Champlain they pick up echo location signals, and there is nothing known in that lake that uses echo location. So there is more evidence that something unknown is living there.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mathieus/loch-ness-monster-was-a-dog-8q4

I always thought the 1934 BBC films of the “monster” swimming in the rain actually showed a sturgeon swimming at the surface. Gray’s photo seems too indistinct to characterize.

The way I usually deal with photographic evidence is that if it’s not clear and I have to sit there and look at it to figure out what it is, I usually dismiss it.

As a matter of fact, here in 2011 I don’t put a lot of stock in photographic evidence, since you can no longer really believe what you see in a photograph.