The Last Salmon Fisher

Dochie Cameron, seen here in his coble Iolair, is one of the last traditional salmon fishermen working the coast of western Scotland. Years ago, Dochie, now a very young 72, was employed in the salmon fishing industry based on Ardnamurchan's north coast, at a time when there were still good salmon to be caught. Today, what little he catches is either a cross between wild and farmed salmon which have escaped from the fish farms, or it has been mauled by seals who are becoming increasingly clever at getting into his net - there are no less than 32 of them lying out on the rocks in Port na Luinge.

Each summer, Dochie sets his nets off Ormsaigbeg. A curtain-like 'leader' net stretches from the shoreline out to a triangular net, a little like a seine net, which has its narrow entrance nearest the leader. It's called a 'bag', and it's held open by the structure seen near the more distant orange buoy in the picture. Salmon swimming along the shore meet the leader and turn seaward, becoming trapped in the bag. Twice a day Dochie sets out in his boat, with his terrier for company, to check his catch by lifting the bag.

This year Dochie faces yet another problem. Recently he removed these two dogfish from inside the net, and the only salmon he has caught was chewed to pieces, probably by friends of theirs.

The salmon-fishing season used to run from February to mid-August, but it has now been cut to June to September. Each year Dochie says that, if things don't improve next season, he'll give up. It can hardly be worth his fuel costs and the heartache for the pitiful return he is getting. If and when he stops, Ardnamurchan's salmon run, and its traditional fishery, will finally have died, and we will have lost yet another link to the past.

Many thanks to Sue Cameron for photos and story

More about salmon netting here