Salmon fishing on Fly-fishuk recommended waters

It has to be every fly fishers dream to one day catch the King of Fish, the silver tourist. Salmo Salar, the leaper.

When your fly swings around in the current and the water bulges behind it you have no idea if it might be a fast fighting Grilse of 5 or 6lbs or an underwater submarine of up to 40lbs and more. The line tightens… the reel sings… and your heart jumps into the back of your already dry throat…

But, the ultimate fish does unfortunately command the highest price. So there is a perhaps unpalatable fact that good Salmon fishing is expensive. And, like anything else of value, it doesn’t get expensive by accident. Nevertheless, as with any other product or service, that does not necessarily mean that all Salmon fishing is good, nor that all good salmon fishing is always expensive.

It might help if I explain how salmon fishing is generally valued in the first place.

Most rents and capital values of salmon fishing waters are directly linked to your statistical probability of catching fish. Should an agent look to market some fishing they will study the numbers of fish caught on the beat over the preceding five or ten years produce an average and then multiply it by the market rental or capital value of the time. At the moment the average rental value of a Scottish fish is around £500.

The rental or capital value is not necessarily fixed. It can be a lot higher or a lot lower depending upon the quality of the beat and the surroundings and what is offered with the water. Is there a ghillie, does the fishing include both banks, does it have accommodation and so on. Values also tend to be averaged over prime and not so prime months of the season rather than being tied specifically to an individual week.

But it certainly follows that the best fishing is usually the most expensive because market forces make it so. Historically particular beats will have proved to produce their best fishing at specific times of the year and people will always be prepared to pay a premium for it.

So why should certain times of year be better than others?

It is because the different nature of each river and even individual tributaries within a single catchment will dictate to the Salmon when they can get to the Spawning beds and when the conditions are likely to be right for successful spawning.

Those fish that get it right breed the next generations and those that get it wrong die out. So different strains of fish have evolved over millennia to take advantage of the best running and spawning times on their particular stream.

Each individual strain of fish returning is called a run and each river can have a single run or sometimes several runs of fish coming in spring, summer, autumn or winter.

To book the best fishing that suits your purse you need to know the true catch records for the particular water at the time of year you are going and all Fly-fishuk waters will provide that information for you.

Salmon fishing – Find out about availability

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