Here's a guided River Tay salmon fishing guest fishing his way methodically down through the Meetings Pool on the Upper Kinnaird salmon beat which is a perfect holding area for salmon in medium to low water levels from mid March through to October each year. Look at the beautiful fully leafed oak trees on the far side of the river.

So much nonsense is spoken about how to hook a salmon on the fly which results in the loss on thousands of Scottish salmon each year. Book a professional guide to get you into position and then show you exactly how to set the salmon fly hook effectively. This salmon in the landing net was hooked properly on the River Tay near the rivers Tay & Tummel confluence which is a great fishing area near Dunkeld in Perthshire.

This is the neck of the famous Ash Tree Pool on the Lower Kinnaird salmon beat which has a lovely fly fishing stream that you can see where many salmon hold up during late Spring through to early Autumn each year. This side of the river is the easiest side to fish from and this salmon fishing trip guest was accompanied by his professional salmon guide.

Here's a perfect cock salmon from the River Tay which was caught in late September near Pitlochry. This adult male salmon is seen here in full Autumn spawning colours which is completely different from their dark grey and silver flanks they have when they first arrive back from feeding in the sea. These creatures and their habits are truly fascinating and booking a personal guide is the most effective way of catching one of these fine Scottish salmon.

This Steps Pool on the Newtyle Beat is a productive salmon holding pool on the River Tay many salmon hold up here due to the series of giant riverbed stones that span right across the Tay in this pool hence the pool's name. The salmon fisher you see is fishing this easy side of the pool where the riverbed is gently tapered and therefore easy to wade through.

Here's a salmon fishing guest fly fishing their way down through the Gean Tree Pool of the River Tay's Kercock salmon beat. This guest was under the supervision of a professional salmon guide resulting in 2 salmon being caught by this fisher that day even though it was a very bright July day. Look at the lovely sunlight sparkle coming off the water.

Here's a lovely Tay Spring salmon that fell for the deadly Jock's Shrimp tube fly near the River Tummel mouth where it enters the River Tay. Fly fishing in Scotland is great fun and is highly satisfying when salmon are outsmarted. This fine salmon took the Jock's Shrimp salmon which you can see in the photograph.

This is one of the salmon fishing middle River Tay hot spots. This stretch of water is known as the Ash Tree Pool which accounts for 40% of the salmon caught on the Lower Kinnaird beat. This salmon fishing guest is fishing the tail of the Ash Tree pool with a professional River Tay salmon guide who took this photograph.

Here's a salmon with a mouthful of the deadly Jock's Shrimp salmon fly. This fish was caught near Dunkeld on the River Tay during July and is a good evidence of just how effective this salmon fly pattern can be. Tie one of these salmon flies onto your leader and watch what happens!

Waking Up Resident Salmon

By Jock Monteith 9th July 2026

To obtain the desired 'reactive' response from a salmon it's imperative that you don't try to bore the fish to death by letting it see far too much of your salmon fly as your fly approaches its holding position.

'Startling' a salmon gives you a far better chance of it responding favourably!

This is the lovely salmon pool directly downstream of the Grandtully Bridge on the River Tay in Perthshire. Many salmon are caught immediately above the white water each year by visiting salmon fishing guests. I took this shot during early June during low Summer water conditions.

What Are The Salmon Seeing

If you could place yourself in the fins of a salmon for a day it would be similar experience to you or I watching the red arrows crossing the sky at an air show. If you take the average of 6 anglers covering a typically popular salmon beat's fly pool in a morning, afternoon & daily guest rotation for 6 fishing days of the week then by my calculations a resident salmon will be typically seeing at least 30 salmon flies per week. If this isn't brainwashing a salmon in to accepting the presence of a fly then I don't know what is!

Here's an Autumn salmon in its dark flanked Autumn river colours. I caught this fine fish which was captured at Kinnaird on the River Tay which is between the Perthshire towns of Dunkeld & Pitlochry. Look at the small rubberised landing net mesh which is safely supporting and protecting this Autumn salmon.

How To Get A Reaction From A Salmon

So the golden question during periods of the salmon fishing season when there's a big build up of older resident salmon in a pool is what can you do to separate your fly from the normal 'boring' fly swing swim of the stereotype fly fisher who's programmed to only go through the motions of casting and who's thoughts stop above the waterline. In this situation there's a few elements to focus in on and that starts with an observant eye that's constantly scanning to see what fly patterns others are failing to hook salmon with!

Here's the beautiful head of a perfect fresh run Scottish salmon which I caught on the fly during Springtime on the River Tay. Note how the head of this silver flanked fresh run Spring fish has turned beige to match the riverbed terrain of the river. This fine salmon took a fly near Dunkeld on the River Tay as was quickly released by me immediately after this shot was taken.

Optimise Your Chances Of A Salmon Take

The other things to study once you've ID'd the patterns of fly that the salmon have already seen and not reacted to (and selected something different) are size, depth, speed & spacings. I've always done well with a smaller fly as I'm in no doubt as to the acute eyesight salmon possess. I'm also a great believer in getting right onto a salmon's nose with the fly or certainly into it that square metre of water directly in front of the fish. During late Spring or through the Summer months when most anglers are trained to fish with floating lines I'd typically always be using a 15ft 3ips (inch per second) or 15ft 7ips proper braided core sink tip depending on the depth of the pool.

This was one of my fishing guests fishing the River Tay in June after being taught to Speycast with this 15ft double handed salmon fly rod. The Tay is Scotland's biggest salmon river which is popular for salmon fishing trips. Look at the lovely riverbank and wooded Perthshire hillside on the far bank.

Salmon Fly Swing Spacings

The fly spacing in any salmon fishing scenario is critical and I mentioned 'startling' a salmon early in this article as the last thing you want to do is give a fish too much of a look at your fly until you're right in front of it's nose. To do that you must be separating each swing of your salmon fly by at least 3 feet but often I'm a foot or two more than that between fly swings. If you study the form of many fly fishers you'll see that 2 feet is about the average fly swing spacing. The bigger fly swing spacings provide the better chance of a predatory reaction simply because you've triggered that impulse by 'startling' the fish in addition to the added value of covering much more water each fishing day!

Once you've got enough faith in a specific salmon fly pattern then look for the fly that outperforms it's replica associates. Here's a selection of my 'Jock Shrimp' & 'Copperass' patterns with a few other aces that I sometimes fish with too. I love these old aluminium Richard Wheatley fly boxes too and have many of them which I've collected over the decades.

A Vital Fly Fishing Component

If you get your fly 'fishing' mind into gear and bin the fly 'casting' thought process that's completely taken over in the last few decades and start focussing in on what I've mentioned above then there's only one last element to transform you into a true salmon fly fishing Ninja. That last component after the pattern, size, depth & spacing pattern has been given serious consideration is the 'movement' of your salmon fly. This part requires a bit of consistent work but you will be amazed how resident salmon will wake up and react if you stick with it during the fishing day.

This is the brown winged version of the Jock's Shrimp fitted with a Partridge Nordic No 6 tube fly hook. This is a true weapon of a salmon fly and lethal for attracting salmon on the famous River Tay and other Scottish salmon rivers.

Unpredictable Salmon Fly Stream Movement

The moment you've made your forward delivery and thrown your mend (or not as the case may be) start introducing little completely inconsistent tweaks and nudges to your salmon fly's swim pattern. Throw in some 'erratic' quick draws during the swing and get that fly moving through the pool in a completely abnormal & unpredictable manner. If you work on that with due care and attention to the basic elements previously mentioned you'll 'wake up' resident salmon and force the desired reaction! What you're now doing is showing resident salmon something they are highly unlikely to have seen before and their curious nature will often do the rest!