This salmon fishing holiday angler is fly fishing through the Mike's Run Pool of the River Tummel during a cold & wet early Spring day. I just had to grab this shot as his salmon guide when the sun appeared through the clouds as it was far too spectacular a light show moment to ignore.

Jock Monteith is a well known professional salmon fishing tour organiser in Scotland and leading professional salmon fishing guide. Jock is holding a perfect fresh run 14lbs Summer salmon in this shot at the Daffodil Lie Pool of the River Tay's Kinnaird Beat which he hooked after a few casts while testing out a salmon fishing trip client's new fly rod .

These fresh run Scottish salmon look as if they've been forged from molten silver and are often referred to as 'bars of silver'. This perfect Spring salmon took a 'Jock's Shrimp' salmon fly near the River Tummel & River Tay confluence during late May which is a great time to intercept a fish of this calibre. I took this perfect up close shot while this beautiful fish was still in the landing net before releasing it back to the river.

Here's a picture of River Tay legendary salmon guide Willie Laird with a perfect February caught 42lbs Spring salmon and happy student fishing guest! Willie was a career ghillie on the Tay for 50+ years before his retirement in 1986. Willie was the Head Ghillie on the Tay's Newtyle Beat near Dunkeld.

Here's a shot of myself while serving as a professional River Tay salmon fishing guide with my black labrador dog 'Selkie' out in the Cottar Pool of the Newtyle Beat near Dunkeld. This shot was taken by professional Scottish photographer Peter Sandground for the Glasgow Herald Magazine.

Here's a perfectly coloured traditional River Tay cobble salmon boat blending in with the riverbank stones slightly upstream of the River Tummel/Tay confluence. This is the tail of the Rock Pool which lies between the Perthshire towns of Pitlochry & Dunkeld. The riverbank trees in the shot are primarily oak trees.

While it's great to return salmon quickly after capture sometimes a salmon will fight so hard it takes it several minutes for it to recover. If you're correctly carrying a landing net like I always do then the recovery task becomes easy as you can just leave the fish in the river margin where there's a steady flow until the fish perks up and is ready for release. This fine February River Tay Spring salmon that I caught on a ABU Toby lure swum off strongly after giving it a few minutes of quality 'hands free' recovery time in the landing net as you can see in my selfie.

Early Spring Fly Fishing

By Jock Monteith 25th March 2026

The early Spring weeks of the Scottish salmon fishing season have always been fascinating to me and salmon movement observations over the years have made me realise the value of these traditionally quieter early Spring fishing months.

The Lone Salmon Angler

I'm sure many of you remember the Lone Ranger series that was popular with us kids of the 60's & 70's well I see a correlation between 'Kemosabe' with his pal Tonto to the lone salmon anglers of the Scottish salmon rivers who dare to venture out into this sharp but beautiful Spring salmon river environment with their ghillie. If you were to pick an optimal fishing time for an encounter with one of Neptune's finest during the second half of February and the entire month of March could not be bettered for contact with a Scottish Spring salmon 'leviathan'.

Illusions Of Scottish Salmon Fishing

If you think 'Old Sam' cares that it's early Spring if he's wanting back to his roots then think again. Even freezing cold river water might slow is ascent down a bit but it won't put him off once he's readjusted to fresh water and committed to his flight path. At this time of year you're looking at one tenth of the fishing pressure so use 'your loaf' and realise that catch stats mean nothing as these digits never compare 'apples with apples' as there are far too many variables in salmon fishing for that 'complete marketing bullshit' to be used as a measuring tool to evaluate any fine Scottish salmon river.

Full Time River Tay Ghillie Experience

I always loved the middle to the end of February after many of the kelts had gone and just knowing that the next tug on the fly rod or buckled rod from the boat would stand a great chance of being a connection with the finest salmon of them all. As a ghillie I'd treat salmon lie coverage of my beat as a daily 'necessity' regardless of what the river level was doing as long as the water clarity was reasonable. Mentally I just couldn't let that daily ritual drop as few fishing guests would ever show up to cover the Spring salmon lies for me. My policy was always 'if you're going to do the job let's get it done right!' and don't play at it as all salmon beats needs worked effectively daily and not inhabited by a moaning ghilie or anglers drinking tea in the fishing hut.

Huge Loch Tay Spring Salmon

The early River Tay salmon fishing Spring months have yet again this year proven to be brilliant months for a good chance of connecting with a silver mobile 'finned' sack of cement that destined for Loch Tay. The loch used to always produce salmon in the 30 to 40lbs class early in the year and even during recent seasons 2 lovely 20 pounders were caught by the brilliant Grant Tigwell at Killin. The big brutes to 35 lbs have been landed during the early Spring weeks in recent years on the Tay prove beyond doubt that this historic run of heavyweight brilliance are still most definitely present.

February Salmon Fishing Logic

Not only should you pay zero attention to the low catch figures derived from negligible angling pressure which Steve McIrvine's Glendelvine beat syndicate guest Jim Shaw rightfully did in February 2018 to catch his 35 lbs Tay 'Springer of a lifetime' but train your mind to look at things from other angles. My daily mindset was always 'if there's a taker in this beat today I'm going to find it' before working out my search areas then making 100% sure every square metre of water received the best of my presentation skills & focus. I'd never come off the water without knowing all boxes had been thoroughly ticked each day and nor should any angler if they're serious about early season success.

Never Let Your Head Go Down When Salmon Fishing

I recall hundreds of incidents on the river that make me smile but few more than this one. I had a great guest called John Irving up fishing the Tay and he'd gone to the trouble of having me source a good Spey rod, reel & line for him and at 4pm he was still delivering (in exceptionally bright Spring sunlight) a perfect and consistent 30 yard Spey cast to the river with his new kit. Two of the other guests were walking up the river bank complaining bitterly about the bright light so I verbally 'pounced' on them. The split second I'd just finished my lecture saying 'listen up guys if a sea liced springer comes up through that fast water and pauses right there in front of him I can assure you it will absolutely nail his fly!' At the same split second I finished my lecture John instantly hooked his very first salmon which was a 'scale perfect' 11 lbs sea-licer which taught those two 'head down' specialists a big but very important salmon fishing lesson!