COLUMN: Happy thoughts of last year's salmon highlights
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Northern Lines by Keith Williams
With a new salmon season imminent it is tempting to look forward to fishing trips ahead. Betwixt Christmas and New Year, however, my thoughts turned back to the 2022 season as I mulled over some personal highlights.
The first salmon of the season is always special, and 2022 was no exception.
An evening visit to the Carron with a colleague resulted in a number of near-misses prior to the successful landing of a fine spring salmon. For reasons I cannot quite explain, until the first fish has been recorded in the book I never quite feel like a proper salmon fisherman.
After the heavy workload of the salmon smolt run during April and May, the natural hiatus provided by the month of June always provides welcome respite for fisheries staff.
A visit to the Hebrides has always proved restful irrespective of how good the fishing is. June 2022 will long be remembered at Grimersta for the plentiful runs of fish from the sea and the best total catch for that month since 1973.
I was fortunate to catch a number of fine salmon, but if I was forced to select one highlight then my last fish of the trip from Loch Faoghail Chiorabhal would surely fit the bill.
Firstly, it was the first time I had met success on that particular loch; secondly, I always regard catching a salmon from a loch as a greater prize than one from the river.
Content with a fitting end to my visit I decided not to cast again, instead watching my boat partner diligently cover the lies. With only a few minutes remaining before we needed to head back to the lodge he was duly rewarded with a lovely fish, thus lending a pleasing symmetry to the day.
Childhood holidays to Bonar Bridge were incomplete lest Shin Falls was visited to view the leaping salmon. I often dreamed of one day fishing the Shin just like those fortunate souls I viewed making their way along the precarious paths to the productive pools. To finally land a fine, heavy Shin fish in 2022 is something that I will always cherish.
My last salmon of the season came, fittingly, from the Kyle of Sutherland itself. It was netted for me by a visiting friend in early September and, somewhat unusually for the time of year, it was bright silver, denoting that it had only recently arrived from the feeding grounds of the North Atlantic.
As ever, it was the sense of place and the person that I was fishing with that contributed as much to the day being memorable as the capture of a fish itself, perhaps even more so.
