Here's a downstream shot of the River Tay on the Benchil salmon beat near the Perthshire village of Stanley.

Here's a River Tay coble clinker built salmon boat being used for harling on the Kinnaird Beat. There's a good salmon lie directly under the Logierait Bridge that you can see in this picture. Harling is a River Tay boat fishing method than fishes 3 or more lures at once. I took this shot in during high water in February.

This River Tay salmon fishing guest was sitting up on the bow of the boat to assist with the navigation of the boat through some downstream shallow water. This tactic lifts the outboard engine's propeller a few inches which makes a huge difference for shallow water navigation. This is a subtle navigational trick all professional River Tay boatmen will know and deploy while navigating through shallow water.

Here's a traditional River Tay 'coble' boat working off a long rope which allows a boat fisher to cover the salmon lies as the boatman slowing releases a yard of rope between each cast. This is a traditional boat fishing tactic on the larger Scottish salmon rivers and is a highly effective method for catching salmon. In the background you can see the lawn of the Dunkeld Cathedral grounds in Dunkeld.

Here's a 16ft River Tay salmon fishing coble constructed from larch and oak. These traditional salmon boats are very stable yet can navigate shallow water when required. I've spent years out in this style of River Tay boat and enjoyed the capture of many salmon while boat fishing. This is one of the Kinnaird Beat boats on the River Tay near Pitlochry in Highland Perthshire.

This perfect River Tay 'coble' boat at the ready stirs my blood in perfect water and light conditions like this. This photo was taken at the tail of the March Pool on the Kinnaird Beat of the Tay during Springtime.

This is God's finest marine creature in a salmon landing net moments before it was released back to its River Tay habitat. This fine fish was caught during late March near Dunkeld and weight exactly 23lbs. The fish took a pearly pink 4 inch Classic Tomic lure in colour code 341. These lures are ordered from Tomic Lures in Canada especially for use on the River Tay by many professional salmon fishing guides.

River Tay Boat Fishing

By Jock Monteith 2nd April 2019

The use of a traditional River Tay 16ft coble salmon fishing boat on the Tay offers several distinct salmon fishing advantages on big rivers where there are often an abundance of long distance salmon lies.

A skilled boatman on the Tay or any Scottish salmon river will handle his boating techniques with absolute perfection even though on the majority of occasions you'll not even be aware of his concentration levels.

A River Tay Boatman

A real Tay boatman will use the minimum energy required on the outboard while navigating upstream and downstream with no bow wave commotion that could move salmon off their lies. Watching a true master boatman is an education in itself and I was fortunate as a young man to have such guidance from a master Tay ghillie the late Willie Laird. In the old days you'd have had 2 men on the oars all day when harling was required and what a long strenuous day that would have been before the outboard era made life easy for the boatmen.

Salmon Fishing From A Boat

A boat can be used as a casting platform where a professional boatman or ghillie will rope you down through the pools while you cast a consistent length of line as he's doing so. It can also be used for traditional River Tay harling where lures or flies are swung methodically behind the boat as it slowly works in a downstream direction. The boat can also be utilised as an upstream or downstream trolling approach and especially for utilising commuting time from one area of the river to the next fishing location if your boatman is sharp enough and often a fish or two can be accounted for by maximising these little daily river journeys.

River Tay Salmon Fishing Harling

With harling the proper technique involves having your lures or flies staggered at different ranges with the middle rod of typically 3 (poker rod) fishing the longest line. The correct River Tay harling approach is to drop the boat back downstream one boat length between each turn of the boat. This requires focus from the ghillie or boatman and if he's engaged in conversation with his guests he'll be operating on peripheral vision and his concentration will be hardly noticeable.

This is a hand built 16ft River Tay 'coble' boat which are constructed from larch & oak by master boat builder John Ferguson who's based in Stanley in Perthshire. These beautiful river salmon fishing boats are a pleasure to use as a professional salmon guide and open up multi faceted fishing applications in addition to the normal fishing tactics deployed from the riverbanks.

River Tay Trolling For Salmon

On the slower moving beats or in low water conditions I've seen various methods of trolling upstream produce the goods and a slow upstream zig zag style of approach can be deadly at any time of year if you know salmon are present in the pool. A day out on the Tay in the boat is a fantastic way to approach the salmon lies and it really scores well by allowing the salmon fisher to control the pace of their salmon fly over the salmon lies whereas a long line fished from the riverbank over long distant lies will be difficult to control. Treat yourself to a River Tay salmon boat fishing experience and observe the tact and skill of an expert Tay boatman and how he goes about his daily boating duties.