The River office by Tay Ghillie Calum McRoberts

The River Office

Words and images by Calum McRoberts

By Calum McRoberts, Meikleour’s Head Ghillie

“I have so many reasons for expressing gratitude but like many of us I probably don’t do it enough. This was brought home to me recently when my father passed away. As a youngster I had no idea what he did for me. Every weekend I would ask to go fishing somewhere and these 'somewheres' were often many, many miles apart. He might have said no sometimes but if he did, I don’t remember it. I have particularly fond memories of fishing the River Whiteadder, near Abbey St. Bathans night the Scottish Borders. I would have been thirteen years old or thereabouts, without a care in the world. Summers seemed endless, the weather always perfect and of course the fish were bigger and more plentiful than they are now. My father wasn’t a fisherman, but he did everything possible to encourage me. I was fortunate to be given incredible freedom as a youngster and once school finished on a Friday afternoon there was never any doubt that I would be fishing Saturday and overnight into Sunday. The catch was always eaten, and any surplus was sold to my P.E. teacher at school. Mr. Garland bought all manner of fin and fur from me, but this was brought to a swift halt by the rector, when I arrived in the school playground one morning with a roe deer strapped to the handlebars. It was dead of course but the girls screams seemed to attract a lot of attention from the staff room and so ended my entrepreneurial ambitions! Very occasionally on nicer days, my father would fish with me. There was a rough ford (river crossing) downstream of Abbey St. Bathans and I remember one beautiful day of blue skies and warm sunshine. We stalked brown trout with dry fly and had a very productive day. What I remember more though is sitting in the grass beside the river, with my father at my side. Everything in the world seemed just perfect. Small boys eventually want to catch bigger fish and in Scotland that often means the salmon - the king of fish. I was lucky to live only one hour from the River Tay and very lucky to meet a man who had access to some productive fishing on the river. I read so much about salmon and salmon fishing but learned more in that first day than many months of reading. True fishermen are very generous with their time and again I was given more reasons to show gratitude. I caught a good few salmon in that first season - my very first salmon being a 17 pounds spring salmon, which is the ultimate prize for any salmon angler. My father came along occasionally but by now I was fishing with ‘proper’ fishermen and looking back I think he recognised this and was happy to let them tutor me. One of the most famous pools on the River Tay is Islamouth and it was here in 1984/85 that my father caught his one and only salmon. It was a March fish of about 8 pounds if my memory serves me correctly. One of seven salmon our party caught that day - it really was much easier in those days! I have a much-cherished photograph of father holding his salmon outside the fishing bothy. It’s a bothy I have got to know very well over the years - in fact, I even get to call it my office nowadays. Fast forward thirty years and I am now very lucky to be employed by the Mercer Nairne family as the Head Ghillie on the Meikleour and Upper Islamouth beat where my dad caught his salmon. A remarkable journey which began as a young lad on the Lothrie Burn in Fife catching 6-inch brown trout and which has moved on to one of the finest offices in the country. The season on the River Tay is a long one, starting in the depths of winter on January 15th and finishing in the autumn - what fishermen like to call the back end - on October 15th. Six days fishing a week - there is no Sunday fishing allowed for migratory fish such as salmon and seatrout in Scotland - for a forty-week season. 240 days fishing a year on a prime River Tay beat. What a dream come true! We welcome guests from all over the world, with the majority coming from south of the border. Salmon fishing in Scotland is still held in the highest regard and the ‘trip up north’ is a date that is still written in the diary with much excitement and anticipation. To catch a salmon is a major event in a fishermen’s year. Something to look back on at the end of the year when sitting by the fire with a dram in your hand. Of course, 2020 has impacted life on the river as well. For three months my family and I saw no fishers. Locked down, we were isolated from the world.

I greatly missed some of our fishers. People who over the years have become great friends. Like the returning salmon, they will come back again next year, but sadly some won’t. There are some good friends that I never had the opportunity to say farewell to. An apple tree was planted by the Castle Pool for ‘Tatty Tait’ a fruit and veg merchant from Glasgow. Charlie passed away as well and many a dram has been drunk sitting by the Castle Pool thinking of his angling exploits. Fishing brings people together, sharing a common goal. A love of our environment. A love of companionship. A love for these remarkable fish. The 2020 season was a very good one on the river. Despite much less angling pressure the catches on the river for most beats have been well up on recent years. Not record breaking by any means, but much better than recent seasons. There is a better stock of fish in the river and a wet autumn has ensured there is plenty of water to get these salmon up into the headwaters of the river system. For the River Tay these headwaters are far over on the west coast of Scotland. Here the salmon will be waiting and in December they will start to spawn and so the remarkable journey will end for most of these fish. Months of starvation (salmon don’t feed in freshwater) followed by the rigours of spawning, sees these once magnificent fish emaciated and unable to survive the long return journey to sea. Under the thin gravel though, their eggs are protected and come the following spring these eggs will hatch and so their story will continue. Aye, I have many reasons for expressing gratitude.”