Come hell or high water

A miracle of Nature, the salmon braves body changes, hungry seals and forbidding waterfalls on its extraordinary journey to and from its spawning grounds. But now, warns Simon Lester, it may be facing one challenge too many

- Simon Lester

I’M standing alone, thigh deep in a sparkling, peat-tinted Scottish river, fuelled with the anticipation of that tug on the drifting line, followed by the exhilarating passage of play, the first sight and the successful landing of the king of fish, the Atlantic salmon. Once you’re hooked, the desire to be on your own on a deserted riverbank— an experience at once thrilling and peaceful —only gets stronger, which is why it has beguiled fisher folk for hundreds of years.

It’s the fish that drives this obsession, the wonderful Salmo salar. As shoals of fry weave at your feet and, a yard away, a mighty silver-scaled giant leaps—as does your heart—you find yourself marvelling at the salmon’s incredible life cycle. These migratory fish are anadromous: they hatch out in freshwater, but spend the majority of their lives in saltwater before returning to rivers to breed. Having spent up to four or five years at sea, their urge to reproduce is strong and they set out for their spawning grounds, their navigation assisted by the earth’s magnetic field. When they approach the coast, their senses take over, the taste of their home water guiding them back to the very location where they hatched. This protracted journey, which has gone on for millennia, is full of perils: salmon are food and must run the gauntlet of a multitude of obstacles to survive—so much so that, out of 5,000 eggs, only five adults may make it back home.