This young man landed 2 almost identical heavyweight Spring salmon during late March on the River Tay. He achieved this after a 30 minute crash course on how to use a double handed salmon rod on the Ash Tree Pool of the River Tay near Pitlochry. This was the 2nd Spring salmon he caught so I took this shot of him and his father while accompanying them as their personal salmon fishing guide. What a memorable morning that was!

I took this shot at the famous Ash Tree Pool of the Kinnaird Beat which is a must fish salmon pool for any salmon angler who's visiting the River Tay. This pool holds many Atlantic salmon from mid March through to mid October each year. This salmon angler was fishing the tail of the pool in this photograph.

This lovely shot was taken at the Ash Tree Pool on the Kinnaird Beat of the River Tay which is located between the Perthshire towns of Dunkeld & Pitlochry. This perfectly tapered gravel riverbank makes wading safe & easy for visiting salmon fishing guests.

This 20 pounder was the first of two perfect March caught Tay Spring salmon caught by this fortunate young salmon angler on his first ever days salmon fishing near Dunkeld in the Tay Valley. Young Robbie Fairfull was given this salmon fishing guide experience with myself by his father via a River Tay salmon fishing experience gift voucher.

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.

Salmon Fishing Brilliance

By Jock Monteith 16th January 2026

There's nothing that compares in any sort of UK fishing to the capture of a wild salmon on a fly rod let alone a big fresh run Spring beast like this fine River Tay specimen.

Over the next few paragraphs I'll elaborate on that statement via a few of my innermost thoughts.

Salmon Fishing Memories

These 2 chaps in the photograph were a father & son team and I'd personally known the father for many years. He'd contacted me to treat his 12 year old boy to a day with myself up on the River Tay as a Christmas gift. None of us truly realised what lay ahead and even for myself after being involved in many salmon captures over the decades I was even quite elated as to how the fishing day unfolded.

Learning Salmon Fishing Basics

Following a brief Spey casting lesson where I could see that they both had mastered this technique and a brief chat about riverbank movement and how to react to the take we started to fish the famous Ash Tree Pool on the Tay's Lower Kinnaird Beat. Within 90 minutes this young man had landed 2 heavyweight Spring salmon both of at least the 20 pound mark. When he was releasing the 2nd salmon I advised him that he'd probably be best to now just take up golf!

Catch A Wild Atlantic Salmon

Catching a wild salmon that's not only managed to survive and leave the imbalanced 'daily batterings' predation levels of its river of birth but also gone on to successfully survive & feed in the ocean eluding all oceanic predators and commercial enterprise is a seriously special occasion. The captor of this perfect fish often feels an exceptional long lasting sense of achievement and rightfully so. This feeling of accomplishment could never be bettered by the biggest stocked or wild brown trout in my opinion even though trout fishing in the UK has a far bigger uptake due to its much more predicatable outcome.

Salmon Fishing Is Not Expensive

The public misconception is that salmon fishing is purely a rich man's sport but that is so not true even though sometimes certain salmon beats can be expensive there are always lower costing venues where the actual quality fishing permit access can be bought for £70 or under at certain times of the year. You take that kind of money and weigh up the personal value of fishing of a well managed salmon beat in perfect natural surroundings and you should easily feel great value.

The Salmon Fishing Challenge

If salmon were too easy to catch few anglers would bother with them as was the case many moons ago when all of the Scottish rivers were stuffed with fish. These days even at times when good numbers of salmon are in the rivers it still takes skill & understanding to be successful and to my mind that is a big part of the challenge & appeal of Scottish salmon fishing. If you take the time to investigate this pursuit properly and get with those who know how to present it properly you'll never look back. Follow this link for details on how to book a guided salmon fishing experience.