The Tay and Earn Salmon Fisheries

Abstract

The River Tay is renowned as the foremost salmon river in the United Kingdom, draining the greater part of Perthshire and entering the North Sea between the south coast of Angus and north-east coast of Fife. It is also probably the most scenic river in Britain and from source to sea stretches for nearly 120 miles, possessing a stronger flow than the Thames and Severn put together. For at least 800 years salmon have been netted on the Tay, the earliest fishing rights divested by the Scottish Crown to the medieval ecclesiastical houses that bordered the river and further beyond. The River Earn, whose confluence with the Tay is just west of the Fife town of Newburgh, is, on the other hand, a muddier siltier river since it largely comes off agricultural land.