Catching Scotland's salmon net fishers as they vanish from our shores
There were once tens of thousands of people employed in Scotland’s salmon net fishing
It is a unique way of life that has all but disappeared.
Now, an Edinburgh-born photographer is set to publish a book that captures Scotland’s salmon net fishermen for evermore.
Colin McPherson has chronicled the salmon fishermen at work for three decades.
The result is Catching the Tide, a book which documents the generations-old practice of using traditional nets to catch wild Atlantic salmon in rivers and estuaries.
It is a practice in sharp decline. In the past, tens of thousands of people were employed in an industry which supplied Scottish salmon to the world, with the sight of nets on beaches and in coastal waters a familiar sight during the summer months of the fishing season.
Salmon netters stretched from Armadale Bay in Sutherland down to the River Tweed and the Solway Firth, with places such as Balintore in Easter Ross, St Cyrus in Aberdeenshire and Montrose in Angus among their natural home.
A steep reduction in salmon numbers due to changes to the climate, pollution and overfishing, coupled with a campaign by angling inerests to curtail net fishing activities, mean that only a handful of men still have the right to fish this way.
Salmon netting was hit with an indefinite moratorium by the Scottish Government in 2019 after a successful case was made by the angling lobby that the practice, which catches salmon in open water as it makes its way to breeding grounds upstream, was responsible for depleting valuable river stocks.
Beginning in 1996, McPherson chronicled the lives of the men as they fished bag nets, sweep nets, jumpers and stake nets.
His work took him to some of the most beautiful and secluded parts of Scotland where he worked with the fishermen to record this ancient practice
Images from his archive, which totals over 850 edited photographs, have been published in newspapers, books and magazine internationally, with examples of the work held in photography collections such as the National Galleries of Scotland’s archive.
Now, McPherson is partnering with Dewi Lewis Publishing to bring out a book which he hopes will be a permanent record of a way of life which is threatened with extinction.
McPherson, whose 35-year career as a professional photographer has led him to work in over 40 countries worldwide on news, sport and current affairs features, said: “It has been a privilege to work with salmon net fishermen over the last thirty years.
“They opened a world to me which was rich in tradition and beautiful to observe. This important slice of life deserves to be recognised and remembered and I hope by bringing out a beautiful book of images, people will understand a little more about the world around us and what we risk losing with the passage of time.”
Catching the Tide - Salmon Net Fishing in Scotland will contain 100 black-and-white photographs from the project alongside a short history of the subject by Fiona Halliday. It will be published in June 2026 and have a RRP of £40.
A crowdfunder is supporting the publication of Catching the Tide. More details of the project, and how to contribute, can be found here
More information about McPherson’s Catching the Tide project and details of the Kickstarter which is running to support the book’s publication can be found here.