As the shooting season draws to a close, salmon fishing begins across many of our rivers. For those enthusiastic or mad enough — depending on how you see it — to brave the icy waters of January and February, the goal is to land the prized and increasingly elusive spring salmon.
It’s a fish that has travelled thousands of miles from its freshwater beginnings to the North Atlantic Ocean and Baltic Sea and back again. On its journey it has navigated any number of obstacles and evaded predators aplenty. Seals, dolphins, cormorants and sawbills alike have all tried to capture Salmo salar before us fishermen enter the river armed only with a rod, line and a hook dressed in feathers and fur.
There are theories as to why a salmon might turn and take such a meagre offering, but no
