I’M standing alone, thigh deep in a sparkling, peat-tinted Scottish river, fuelled with the anticipation of that tug on the drifting line, followed by the exhilarating passage of play, the first sight and the successful landing of the king of fish, the Atlantic salmon. Once you’re hooked, the desire to be on your own on a deserted riverbank—an experience at once thrilling and peaceful —only gets stronger, which is why it has beguiled fisher folk for hundreds of years.
It’s the fish that drives this obsession, the wonderful. As shoals of fry weave at your feet and, a yard away, a mighty silver-scaled giant leaps—as does your heart—you find yourself marvelling at the salmon’s incredible life cycle. These migratory fish are anadromous: they hatch out in freshwater, but spend the majority of their lives in saltwater before returning to rivers to breed. Having spent up to four or five years at sea, their urge to reproduce is strong and they set out for their spawning grounds, their
