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.

A River Tay salmon guide will take you to the best fishing areas and will make sure you're fishing through them optimally. If you are new to the sport a guide will teach all of the basic fly fishing skills and will supply all of the required fishing equipment and permit access. This is an upstream shot of the March Pool on the River Tay opposite the River Tummel mouth. Look at the perfectly strimmed riverbank I completed for the benefit & safety of our many visiting River Tay salmon fishing trip guests.

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 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.

Sometimes when you arrive on a Scottish salmon river the weather or water conditions won't be perfect but that doesn't often matter to salmon which can be the most unpredictable fish of all. This shot was taken during perfect fishing conditions during late May on the Mike's Run Pool of the River Tummel which is the last salmon pool before the River Tummel meets the River Tay slightly further downstream.

Here's a fine shot of a beautiful oak tree that's located right at the River Tummel confluence of the River Tay. These perfectly cut riverbanks are important for the general enjoyment and safety of visiting salmon fishers. This perfect area of the River Tay Valley is located close to the Perthshire towns of Dunkeld & Pitlochry.

Stealth & Salmon Lies

By Jock Monteith 13th June 2026

There are many good opportunities to catch salmon blown each year in Scotland by salmon anglers who rush straight into a salmon pool far too quickly and without much thought.

Often salmon fishers are completely unaware of how close to a riverbank salmon often take up their holding positions.

This beautifully conditioned brown trout had just been caught on a big salmon lure which it clearly thought was a juvenile salmon smolt. These big wild brown trout are juvenile salmon's biggest predator on all of the Scottish salmon rivers even though this fact is generally unknown amongst ghillies and river management.

Salmon Have Great Radar

Any fish that's survived the perils of juvenile river life for 2 or 3 years from the constant imbalanced daily & nightly assault from big cannibal brown trout (a massive unchecked issue these days compared to days of old), goosanders, mergansers, cormorants & otters is one smart little creation if you truly think about that fact. Predation control for juvenile salmon these days is at an all time low on most Scottish salmon rivers so any juvenile salmon that actually survives early river life should be on the New Year honours list! Don't underestimate a salmon's ability to sense any type of predator as they are survival conditioned to become 'true masters' from a very early age.

Salmon fry are often abundant in the margins of the River Tay during late Spring when the eggs hatch from the gravel. This shot of these fry on the gravel riverbed was taken near the Perthshire town of Dunkeld while I was working as a salmon fishing guide.

Juvenile Salmon In River Protection

Juvenile salmon have a hard time of it due to over cautious laws that protect and allow other creatures to dominate & flourish that serve little or zero benefit by comparison to the river ecosystems or Scotland's rural economies. It's like a failed IQ test for Government & all of the other wild life organisations who haven't yet provided any sensible basic protection for juvenile salmon and have presided over the systematic demise of the once 'huge' annual Scottish salmon smolt migrations and the equally once 'colossal' returning adult salmon runs. The conveniently created completely 'false narrative' that 'ocean mortality' is the only issue affecting salmon stocks when the returning adult salmon numbers inevitably started dropping via zero traditional 'river husbandry' even though no measures have been put in place to safeguard these known salmon migration routes like a much needed (and decades overdue!) Salmon Fishery Patrol Vessel as a deterrent against basic migration route & feeding ground commercial exploitation and for 'real time' scientific data to keep our scientific community happy.

I took this shot of a salmon fly fishing angler at the Croys Pool of the Kercock salmon beat which is one of many middle River Tay hot spots. This middle area of the Tay is good for salmon fishing from March through to October and the Tay can be fished with the fly or with a spinning lure. This lovely gravel riverbank is easy to fish from unlike the far tree clad riverbank.

Salmon Need A Careful Pool Approach

With the perils of in-river life predation salmon instantly have to adjust to or be 'snaffled' it's no wonder they require a careful fishing approach most of the time. Their dark backs and their tendency to enjoy lying up often in areas that are very close to the edge of the river make them virtually invisible and easy to spook by a salmon fisher who's not thinking about where fish could be holding in a pool as he approaches it with distance cast fever! Stealth of approach on any size of Scottish salmon river is a useful skill to learn and will increase your success ratio if you tune in. Unfortunately a mirror is a seldom used salmon fishing instructional tool but then again few anglers even bother to undertake any formal training so naturally moaning about the general lack of salmon (even though they're only really pursuing the capture of one fish on any one fishing day) is more convenient to justify their lack of success.

The River Tay's Newtyle Beat has many good salmon fishing pools that can be fished with a fly or a spinner. This fly fishing angler is just approaching one such hotspot at the tail of The Trap Pool. I took this shot while working as a salmon fishing guide for this salmon fisher. This fine photograph was taken during August when many fish are present in this lovely Tay salmon pool.

How To Approach A Salmon Pool

Your approach to a salmon pool should always be a 'slow' movement 'wide' berthed one and never from the tail to the neck of the pool crunching your way up the gravel along the side of the riverbank. Stop at the neck of the pool if you're not familiar with the salmon lies and study the flows looking for the dark glassy patches or the edges of the stream where there's calmer deep water. Look for the surface swirls and boils created by subsurface features where salmon could be present. Once you're ready to fish move slowly into the water to ankle, shin or knee depth only (with no bow wave!) and start with a short gradually extending line before going deeper (only if required) and extending your fly line to full casting length before commencing your methodical downstream fishing 3ft fly swing spacing movement.

Undisturbed Salmon Pools

There's nothing that beats being out on a salmon pool on any of the Scottish rivers when you've an internal 'hunch' that salmon are present whether they're showing or not. This is what salmon fly fishing is all about and that careful pool approach goes along way to increasing your chances of gaining the desired reaction from a fish that doesn't yet know you're there! I've watched hundreds of salmon anglers over the years put their chest waders on then within minutes they've 'charged' into a salmon pool right up to their oxters and wonder why they don't catch salmon on the fly. Common sense really but drop those often inaccurate thoughts that salmon are only present in the centre seam of the river as that will cost you many fish! Also, nothing is better than going onto an undisturbed salmon pool that you know hasn't been fished for a while even though that's not what anglers have been trained to look for and book these days!