Environmental policy, Fallon's Angler, Fly-fishing, River restoration, Salmon, Writing

Fallon’s Angler, issue 8: The unsolicited salmon

Writing an article isn’t just writing an article. It’s also writing the right article, and then finding the right place to get it published. Sometimes this can feel a lot like the painstaking process of fishing itself…

Three casts later, as I tracked the nymph round and felt it lifting through the currents, just as I’ve fished so many times for deep-water grayling in the Alps, the salmon took. 

Unlike that moment when you stick a big trout, and it’s all fireworks and kick-bollock-scramble, the world actually seemed to slow down, and there was lots of time to think. The salmon stayed slow and deep, except when it pulled unstoppably and crashed three times on the surface, and I knew I had to stop it working down to deeper water…

So, I reckon I finally got the right article written about a fish which I may have mentioned once or twice already on this blog, and I’m really thrilled that it’s now been published in issue 8 of Fallon’s Angler.

Apart from telling the story of that unsolicited salmon from the River Ken in Galloway, I’ve also included some unavoidable discussion of the effects of industrial-scale hydropower and blanket coniferous forestry on Scotland’s landscape and rivers, and by extension many other parts of the British uplands. (Spoiler alert: not so good, but if we look hard enough, we can still see some reasons for hope).

Copies of Fallon’s Angler are always available direct from the magazine’s website, or from a few independent outlets. Go on, get yours today