#006// Springers.

Spring salmon fishing in Scotland is an interesting pastime. As winter starts to leave, often while there’s still ice floating down the river and snow falling, the spring fisherman appears. The river is often at its deepest, and fresh run Atlantic salmon are at their scarcest.

It is a pursuit defined by its lack of success, these days the chance of catching one of these “springers” is lower than ever, and the fishing is often at some of its most technical. Big heavy flies are swung in deep icy water while the determined fisher slowly feels his feet drop below Baltic temperatures, wading deep and hoping to connect with one of these eager fish.

By the time the ice has formed in the rod rings at the end of fishing the first pool, your thoughts have turned from catching a fish, and the idea of gently lifting it from the net and letting it swim back to the idea of just a tug, just the idea of some hope that there are fish in front of you. Seeing a fish, far from the fly but moving in the pool is elation itself by lunchtime.

The spring fisherman is by the nature of his participation an optimist and a fanatic, often bordering on the obsessive. In a time when Atlantic salmon stocks have never been in more need of fanatical support, there has never been more of a need for these die hard salmon addicts.