Here's Jock Monteith powering upstream in a traditional larch built River Tay salmon fishing 'coble' boat at the confluence of the River Tay & River Tummel during the month of May. Jock has his cold weather clothing on and Tweed cap in addition to his life jacket which is essential for all boat or riverbank duties.

Here's professional Scottish salmon guide Jock Monteith with a salmon fishing tour guest at the neck of the famous Kinnaird Beat's Ash Tree Pool. You can clearly see the beautiful Perthshire hills behind Pitlochry in the distance and Jock carrying his favourite salmon landing net over his shoulder.

Here's a group of salmon fishing holiday guests testing out their newly learned Spey casting and riverbank movement techniques on the left bank of the River Tay's Cottar Pool on the Newtyle Beat. This perfect green grassy bank makes a perfect salmon pool for teaching salmon fishing guests.

I took this photograph of this salmon fisher on the River Tay while serving as his salmon fishing guide. The former legendary Kinnaird Beat ghillie Bob Grant always described the Guay Pool as his favourite and most productive salmon pool. Having personally steered many fishing guests to salmon in this lovely pool I can only agree with Bob's evaluation. Nothing has changed in recent years as the Guay Pool is still the most productive Lower Kinnaird Beat salmon pool.

Here's professional salmon fishing guide Jock Monteith demonstrating the single Spey right hand up cast with his Graham of Menteith tartan kilt and lovat green Tweed jacket. The blue fishing hut across the river is the Newtyle Beat fishing hut near Dunkeld where Jock served as Head Ghillie for a decade. This shot was taken at the neck of the Newtyle Beat's Boil Pool.

Here's myself with a group of 5 salmon event fishing day guests on the River Tay near Dunkeld. Bigger fishing groups are becoming more popular on the Scottish salmon rivers and adding a professionally catered fishing hut lunch to the day is a lovely touch. This fine salmon fishing group shot was taken outside the Kinnaird fishing hut on the River Tay in Perthshire.

These Arabian guest had a great day out on the River Tay with me during August and all mastered the Scottish Spey cast and other important salmon fishing skills very quickly. When you live in London I guess coming to the Tay Valley for some salmon river therapy is a polar opposite to daily London life. This was one of the fish caught from the Tay salmon boat in the picture.

Salmon Fishing Guides In Scotland

By Jock Monteith 6th March 2026

A professional Scottish salmon fishing guide has to have a unique range of fishing and hosting skills to be able to effectively look after fishing guests on the rivers of Scotland from year to year.

In the following paragraphs I'll detail a few of these necessary attributes which will highlight what makes a professional salmon guide excel in this business.

A Truly Professional Salmon Guide

The first most important factor is that a professional guide has to have a well grounded background of being an exceptional salmon fisher with all various tactical approaches. This skill may sound as if this should be taken for granted but I can assure you that many guides are not technically gifted and it's very much the minority of professional guides who have this rare range of 'effective' salmon fishing skills.

Time Served Salmon Fishing Guides

A professional Scottish salmon guide really needs to have served in a professional capacity in the industry to have obtained high level guest hosting skills that they can adjust to match any salmon fisher who appears on the river. Different guests require varying approaches of interaction and 'full time' river guest hosting experience will have fine tuned this vital component of how to deal with all types of fishing guests. All salmon fishing guides need to realise that they are in the 'people business' and good hosting skills are vital for the client experience whether a salmon shows up or not.

Salmon Guide Communication Skills

A professional salmon fishing guides has to be a great communicator in order to get guests fishing quickly and effectively even if the guests have no prior salmon fishing experience. Knowing how to keep communications simple yet effective are vital when it comes to teaching Spey casting or riverbank movement techniques. If the communication skills are not up to scratch this obviously restricts the guests chances of success. A professional guide's objective is to quickly duplicate their own skills with all the fishing guests to increase the quality of presentation and effective water coverage.

Book A Salmon Fishing Guide

When you hire a Scottish salmon fishing guide through ourselves you're hiring the best of the best as we do not work with salmon fishing guides who do not fit the above criteria of experience or skills. It's crucial that your Scottish salmon fishing experience provides you with the very best chances of success and staying in this truly magical sport. A salmon guide with only one of the many new casting body certificates is more often than not simply unable to teach you the real fishing skills you need to know due to a lack of professional 'hands on' experience. A seasoned professional guide who's on top of their game and spent many years on the river on a daily full time basis will ease your introductory process significantly and stand you the best chance of catching salmon. Follow this link for more details on how to book a Scottish salmon fishing guide.