Exactly where this River Tay salmon fisher is positioned is a very good salmon lie as the stream slows up here and deep water begins so perfect for resting salmon to hold up in. This is the Meetings Pool tail at Kinnaird which is between the Perthshire towns of Pitlochry & Dunkeld. The angler is a salmon fishing guide team member from Monteith guided salmon fishing services.

Here's a lovely scene of the right hand bank of the Meetings Pool on the River Tay near Pitlochry. This is a good area of the Tay to catch salmon and many fishers come here each year in pursuit of them with their own salmon fishing guide to make sure they are fishing the pools optimally.

Here's the most perfect River Tay salmon pool where the River Tummel meets the Tay. This has always been a great area for catching salmon on a fly. Located between the Perthshire towns of Pitlochry & Dunkeld this area is fairly easy to access from all major Scottish cities making it a must for any visiting salmon fishing trip guests. This salmon fisher was being guided by one of our salmon fishing guide team members who captured this lovely shot of the occasion.

Here's one of the River Tay ghillies with a big coloured cock salmon that was captured near Dunkeld during September. Many big salmon like this enter the Tay during the Autumn high water months so there's always a fair chance of our salmon fishing guides connecting our salmon fishing trip guests with one of these fine specimens.

Here's a downstream shot taken in front of the Upper Kinnaird Beat salmon fishing hut on the River Tay. This lovely Tay salmon beat is located directly upstream of the Tummel Tay confluence and is a fantastic salmon beat for a quality River Tay fly fishing experience. The salmon pool 50 yards downstream of the boat id called Daffodil Lie and is marked with a big bunch of daffodils which appear each Spring when the pool fishes its best.

The Dalmarnock fishing hut front elevation faces directly downstream to the Inch Pool where the movement of salmon can be observed during lunch. This River Tay salmon beat is nearly 3 miles in length and is located close to Dunkeld. Look at the lovely hand made Dalmarnock sign and the sliding security door. The decking area and table is where our salmon fishing trip guests eat their lunch during periods of good weather.

Salmon Fishing Facts

By Jock Monteith 6th March 2021

It's always a great moment when you arrive at any salmon beat in the morning whether you're a guest or a professional ghillie and far superior than checking into an office unless of course the fishing hut is your office!

Life On The Salmon River

They say 'life is for living' and that it's no dress rehearsal so personally it was always only ever a basic IQ test to devote my career to the salmon river which was a decision made early in life. The natural beauty and vibe of the river is certainly addictive but so also is the 'banter' of brilliant riverbank relationships that form out of the thousands of salmon fishers most ghillies will meet throughout their professional careers. The salmon fishing pursuit has multiple attractions aside from the inevitability of enough thoughtful casts!

The Scottish Ghillie Career Choice

Taking the river path in life is a brave path indeed given the 'unpredictability' of Atlantic salmon and their often total defiance of our timing keeping measurement tools. The ever changing ocean temperatures and Winter flood levels have always played a role in the returning abundance of the species making it an even bigger challenge for success on years where there's apparently fewer fish about. On the river these days unchecked predation issues that once never existed have also hindered progress so the professional ghillie has a different set of issues to mentally overcome just the same as most other career paths will have.

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.

Keeping Faith In Salmon Runs

While it was easy to write off the recent 2018 season in it's entirety due to a poor Spring run where only big but fewer salmon showed up our salmon yet again mysteriously appeared as soon as the water and lower temperatures eventually arrived in late August. The lack of salmon action that year was primarily due to warm weather and low water and nothing much else. My advice is to just get over any lean times you experience as salmon do what suits them best and if effective stock enhancement measures are ever to be introduced to bolster wild stock levels it will likely take time as we currently have zero juvenile stock output measurement control and an accompanying lack of oceanic security required to effectively safeguard our salmon's 'known' migration routes to and from their feeding grounds where salmon can easily be commercially exploited. There has also been a massive lack of 'in-river' predation control which only a few decades ago did not exist although I hear some rivers have made some good progress on certain aspects of what needs to be consistently done over the last couple of years.

Vague Catch Statistic Information

Most anglers have developed a modern day 'catch statistics' dependency and decide where (and if) they fish based on previous catch years or where is currently producing fish. This assessment procedure is most certainly flawed for the following reasons. The average angling skill set level wouldn't necessarily be able to capitalise on a pool packed full of fresh run 'takers' so that scenario would be unlikely to translate into half a dozen or more salmon landed which would be the case if a few skilled salmon anglers were present. While using catch statistics is deemed necessary for evaluating salmon beats and for the reporting of annual catches to Marine Scotland there should be more thought applied to how catch figures are used for daily marketing purposes so they don't continue to be a giant salmon beat sales prevention tool costing the industry big revenues. If a beat is going to use the daily catch stats route for marketing light should also be shone on whether a salmon beat was actually fished on any particular day/week and if so how experienced any anglers present were (beginner, average or advanced). Without more basic information a beat holding plenty of fish and un-fished (or fished by complete beginners) will always look like a non starter on the internet.