This is the Kercock salmon fishing beat of the River Tay. This perfect salmon fishing pool produces many salmon each year for our salmon fishing guide team when they host fishing trip guests on the River Tay. You can see the single salmon fisher and the Dunkeld hills in the distance.

Here is a traditional River Tay harling boat moored on the lovely sandbank at the Kinnaird Beat Rock Pool. The 2 salmon anglers on the right hand side of the river with their professional guide had just landed their 2nd salmon when I took this perfect shot. This fishing area of the Tay is between Pitlochry & Dunkeld where the River Tummel greets the Tay and is a renowned hot spot. The deep water to the right hand side of the boat is a serious salmon holding pool that our salmon guides love to take salmon fishing guests to.

Here's a shot of a professional salmon guide and his salmon fishing guest out on the famous Ash Tree Pool of the River Tay which is located in Highland Perthshire between Pitlochry & Dunkeld. This is a great area of the River Tay to fish for Atlantic salmon.

Here's professional River Dee salmon guide John Fyfe holding 1 or 3 salmon that he landed on the River Tay near Dunkeld during the month of August. I personally guided him this day to eliminate him guessing where the salmon were holding and his professional salmon fishing presentation expertise did the rest. This Summer salmon was landed at the Green Bank Pool on the Kinnaird beat and you can see the Tay salmon boat in the background.

Here's the result of 90 minutes on the Newtyle Beat of the River Tay by myself as the Head Ghillie. 2 of these fish were early run Spring salmon and the rest Autumn run fish. All of them were taken to the River Tay hatchery programme as brood stock although the 2 Spring fish were brought back 2 weeks later and released to go and reproduce naturally.

Scottish Salmon Fishing Facts

By Jock Monteith 12th September 2019

The entire Scottish salmon fishing busimness has to date been massively under presented in my professional opinion where catch statistics figures and water levels have become the main industry drivers.

The bigger attributes like visual presentation and high quality 'stess free' fresh air should also be taken into account when assessing a salmon beat fishing opportunity.

Catch Statistics Are A Poor Indicator

What I mean by this is that catch statistics are not a good indicator of how many salmon are present in a river or individual salmon beat and the only way for that to properly occur is for the river management to implement actual fish counter technology if true stock position numbers are to be acquired. If no anglers turn up to fish a river then you have obviously no salmon being caught and so a downward spiral commences. These days digital salmon scores on websites are the main drivers of Scottish salmon fishing which is seriously flawed as is the assumption that every salmon angler who turns up to fish a river knows how to catch salmon assuming any turned up at all.

Salmon Angler Efficiency

You could easily have a pool full of taking salmon with no salmon fishers present on a beat or poor salmon fishers who miss the hooking opportunities they get offered. You could also have a scenario where one angler is present on a salmon beat who personally lands 2 salmon and another venue catches 4 salmon with a full compliment of eight fishers present to achieve it making that venue look better on paper. Personally I'm tired of something as inaccurate as 'catch statistics' driving the entire industry and especially at a time with global environmental uncertainty and natural stock adjustments occurring with many indicator species including Atlantic salmon.

Historic Scottish Salmon Catches

In the 70's when I first got involved in Scottish salmon fishing you'd never hear the beat ghillies talking about catch statistics unless they were talking about the total catch for the previous season. That didn't mean that you were guaranteed to catch salmon either as there were 'highs & lows' back in those days too. A big part of the attraction of Scottish salmon fishing is the 'escape' back into the natural world surroundings where our ancient relatives once dwelled and getting as far away from the stresses of modern day living and all the pressures that go along with that. The unpredictability of the sport also adds to its value as if catching salmon was too easy I'm sure its appeal and challenge would diminish.

Respect Scottish Salmon Rivers

In the old days a salmon was always regarded as a bonus and not an expected booking condition. If you're a salmon angler the best approach is to pay attention to your own personal salmon fishing skill set and develop these to a point where on a 'worst case' scenario you're still able to force a take from a fish when the water conditions or suspected salmon stock levels are not at their best. This is a far more sensible approach than paying too much attention to a marketing strategy that do date still overlooks all the fine 'visual' attributes of Scottish salmon fishing.