Great Days On The Fly

This was the result of 3 hours fly fishing on the Newtyle beat. During the closed season months of November & December the Tay is full of big fresh run Autumn salmon, early Springers & coloured Autumn fish. For years I used to help collect broodstock for the TDSFB hatchery program with coloured salmon (ready to spawn) being the main objective. More often than not my fly would be intercepted by big silver sea-liced beauties which in hind sight were part of the Autumn run that naturally don't time their arrival in to the Tay to coincide with our tight schedules and calendar months. In the 70's I remember these fish being present in the Tay in September but also hard frosts starting at that time of year which is now a very rare occurance. Standing back objectively looking at the current situation it's maybe a good thing that the true Autumn run is left largely untampered with as it's highly likely that these prized salmon would be decimated too through exploitation. Thank goodness mother nature has her own way of protecting her valued treasures.