Our story begins, one hour before sunrise, on the banks of the River Tay at a point midway between Deucharty Hill and the Hermitage. It had rained heavily for 3 days and the full moon had been shrouded by the thick clouds that filled the glen from Birnam to Pitlochry. From the hills, the perpetual rumbling of heavy lorries on the A9 hung in the air, long after they had passed. It was dark, wet, cold and plain miserable, and as far as most of us are concerned, a poor herald for the weather prospects in June. Miserable, that is if you're sane. Perfect if you are a fisherman!! The rain had filled the river with water and oxygen. Replenished its occupants with a fierce appetite and an abundance of food. The inhabitants of the river were therefore active, full of life and that is always good for those who hunt its teeming waters. The first of our fishers was stirred from its tree-top nest by the distant groaning of an Articulated lorry travelling South on the road. The Heron turned its head North towards the drone of the diesel engine, listened to its approach and searched for the glow of its lights through the cloudy night. Then it looked East, searching for the first hint of sunrise. The rain had stopped and as the cloud was beginning to lift, the outlines of the surrounding hills were now visible. The lorry changed gear as it cleared the hill and bend at Dowally and began its smooth descent towards Dunkeld. The Heron looked back towards the approaching sound. Still no sign of its light, the Bird turned again to the East. A faint, but warm red glow was now visible in the sky and the Bird stretched its great wings in preparation for flight, then stood for a moment and looked down river toward its breakfast perch. Shafts of light shot through the mist, as the lorry crossed the bridge over the river at Balnaguard. The Heron leapt into the darkness and flew downriver It landed, just as the lorry passed and its drone changed pitch. The light was changing every second now and the surface of the water shimmered, as the rising sun announced its arrival. Great shafts of red light were arcing up from behind the hills and into the sky and an eerie mist clung to the surface of the water. The sound of the fading lorry changed pitch again, as another vehicle added its own sound to the awakening Glen. The Heron now focussed its attention on the water at its feet and waited patiently for it to disclose its secret world. As the merest hint of blue crept into the fleeing night sky and the rumble of the Inverness train joined the chorus of travelling lorries on the road, the Heron froze. The mirrored surface of the water began to dissolve and hundreds of tiny shadows darted at the bird's feet. Then, in one swift and sudden movement the Heron's beak pierced the water and a second later it withdrew its head, its mouth full of tiny trout. The bird shook the water from its head and swallowed its first food of the day.

Another fisher watched the bird from a spot, a hundred yards upstream, at the foot of a giant oak tree. He smiled at the scene before him. The Heron was lit up by the advancing light, its silhouette magnified by the sparkling water. The sun had arrived and Stanley the Ghillie dusted himself down, stood up and silently moved to his boat. He was the grand old man of the beat. This last twenty years, he had come back to this particular beat, purely because of its beauty. Without doubt it was one of the bonniest of all beats on the River Tay. Rich Anglers travelled from all over the world and paid small fortunes for a few days Salmon fishing on the Tay and Stanley had it in his careful charge all year round !. It was not, however, the most productive. In fact, the last season had yielded only 71 fish and so far this season, there had only been 17 salmon taken. Everyone was worried. Guests were returning from their days on the river empty-handed, and regardless of the reasons, it was bad for business. Stanley, however, was fishing for himself this morning. He had bided his time, quietly on the bank, watching the Heron arrive with the dawn and listening to the world awaken around him. In the darkness he had heard his quarry splash loudly. He knew by the volume of the splash that it was a big fish. He also knew, that now the rain had gone, the salmon would probably become a resident of the pool until night came with more rain. The conditions were perfect and coupled with the warmth that the dawn had filled him with, he was confident he would connect with the fish. He climbed into the boat, started its engine and prepared to fish the Rock Pool.

Stanley steered the boat into the middle of the river. He had worked out his own system for using the craft so he could cover parts of the pool he couldn't dream of touching from the bank. He congratulated himself on this unconventional method. Then he switched the outboard off and the boat hung suspended at the top of the pool, in a smooth glide and secured by a rope and hook fixed to the opposite bank. He then sat in the middle of the boat and unpacked his take bag. A mist hung over the pool below him. He looked downstream to the Heron and beyond to the growing sunrise. A feeling of pure contentment rushed through his veins. The world around him was waking up and all around him life flourished. Birdsong filled the air echoing and dancing with the lapping of the water. A swallow appeared. Its acrobatic flight captured his attention and he revelled in its grace and control in the air. Stanley took its arrival as an omen of his good fortune, like most true anglers, and in spite of his beliefs, he was prone to superstition. The swallow dived and leaped and climbed in the air above the river. It circled over slow water above the large outcrop of rock (that gave the pool its name). The first brush of the sun had lifted the temperature and the dawn hatch of flies were leaving their river womb. The Swallow plucked them from the air as they rose from the water in their millions. His rod secured, he lifted his flask from a pocket on his bag and toasted the sun, whispered a Hail Mary, then swallowed a large Malt. Yes, The warmth of the whisky rushed through his body. He put the flask in his pocket, lifted the fly rod and began to cast.

The fish turned and the reel screamed as 20 yards of line were stripped from it. He lifted the rod tip and grabbed the line. Immediately he was dragged to his feet by a savage pull, the fish was taking control. It must be a Monster. The boat shifted and Stanley swung with it, struggling to keep his balance. The line went slack for a second, .... then the fish turned again, this time running below the boat. The line tightened, the rod was yanked down and Stanley was thrown off balance . ... and off went the fish on its run, stripping line and pulling Stanley with it. It leapt out of the water and so shocked was he at its size and power that he almost forgot to lower the rod tip, less the fish break free. It must be 70lbs thought Stanley. He started to sweat._ First it ran upstream to Stanley's horror, dragging the boat with it for a few yards. Then it turned again and rushed downstream. He didn't want this, it was all happening too fast for him. Behind him a large branch caught in the current moved towards the boat. the branch hit the boat. Stanley swung sideways. The fish jumped and Stanley was pulled over the side of the boat. He couldn't swim.!!!!!!!!!!!!! The cold water slapped at his whole body and he opened his mouth and breathed in at the shock. Water rushed into his lungs and he panicked, flailing his arms at the boat. He managed to grab hold of the boat and coughing and spluttering, pulled himself towards it. His Heartbeat raced. His head cleared the surface. He gasped for air. Something inside him burst. The salmon tugged at his outstretched arm. His rod arm was dropped into the water and now the fish and current began to pull at him through the rod. Stanley managed to lift the rod out of the water and hooking his forearm over the side he tried to pull himself back into the boat, his chest waders were full of water. His heart raced again just as he felt he was getting control of it all, Bang ... his rod and arm shot away from the boat as the fish turned and ran upstream. And ran... and ran ... and ran, stripping the line down to the backing. And kept going. 50 yards ... 100 yards ... 150 yards,. The rod jerked backwards as the fish broke free. Stanleys heart began to fail him. He felt his strength drain away. The river plucked his hold from the boat. The current carried him downriver, past the hotel, through the Lady pool, past the grey stane Niel Gows tree and down into the depths of the mousetrap. He slipped in and out of consciousness.

His fish had run continuously upriver, with the fly in its jaw and with 180 yards of line trailing behind it. Up past the carrot beds and the Ivy Tree. On rounding the bend at Upper Dunkeld, the trailing line snagged on a rock and such was the speed of the fish's flight, that the fly tore out it’s lower jaw . Somehow, it managed to move up as far as the Island off Dalguise. Then the current swept the dying fish downriver. Its heart stopped beating at exactly the same moment that Stanley's did.

At that point God intervened. Actually, he was having trouble with his gatekeeper, Peter, who had been admitting (or not admitting) souls to Heaven, well for 2,000 years, he had been cantankerous of late. He was inventing different rules for admission almost on a daily basis and since Limbo and Purgatory had been closed down, there were only two places left for a soul to go. Stanley arrived at the gates........... "I didn't get where I am today not knowing how to swim!" boomed the voice of the old Gatekeeper. " In my day if you wanted to be a fisherman you had to complete at least 10 lengths of the Galilee Swimming Baths before you were allowed near a boat .... and the water wasn't heated! I mean, Stanley, what do you think the newspapers will say - "Floundering fisherman falls foul of fish" eh? Silly Stanley, NON-SWIMMER, succumbs to Look, I don't let the kind of people in here who need L plates on their rubber ring". A phone rang. "Just a moment!" "Fisherman indeed ..... Hello, yes .. yes ... no! Look boss, you put me in charge of these gates so it should be my decision who gets in! No, I don't think there should be a problem here every day ... " "Yes, oh yesterday I couldn't let them in, none of them could yodel !! Yes, I'll sort this one out now ... for heaven's sake!" Peter slammed the phone down and turned to face Stanley. "Right, you're not getting in, we're sending you back to learn to swim ......

Slowly the void evaporated and Stanley first heard the river around him, long before he ever knew where he was. Shadows darted past his hazy vision and something cold sucked and pulled at him, the noise of the river was all around him. The realisation of his predicament soon dawned on him. As a Salmon ova, his first 3 months were so exhilarating, he never had time to question his re-incarnation as a fish. There had been no soft introduction to life this time round. He had to learn how to swim, in order to breathe. For a time his entire world clung to his body in the form of a yolk sac. This was his nourishment. His tiny fins were no match for the pull of the river and so he was confined to the slow water near the reeds. He learned the ways of the river along with his new family. Stanley learned to use his tail, and fins along with a thousand brothers and sisters. One vast nursery. His mother stayed with the brood for only a short time, and no sooner was she gone, than the eels were amongst them, scattering the young. Stanley learnt quickly, as did his brothers and sisters. The slow water around them was their entire world. He eventually found that the river had it's own particular rhythm and soon learned to move with the beat and tempo of the many differing currents. At first, each was as awkward as the other. They collided continually during the daylight, and squabbled and fought for their own space. During the night they clung together for warmth and security. It was a fellowship and warmth that Stanley had never before experienced, such a closeness, it warmed his spirit against the cold water. He found his control in the water improved daily. His tail and fins were firm and strong, his body forged by the river's relentless push and pull. His idea, his very understanding of time changed. He learned to respect the cover that nightfall gave him and he found that after some time, he could feel the presence of other fish, through changes in the water pressure around him.... In a matter of months his yolk-sac disappeared and Stanley’s leaner, larger frame and growing appetite led him into faster, deeper water. Stanley transcended the first part of his apprenticeship and grew - from fledgling to Parr.

His next two years in the river were his happiest. The river was one enormous playground and his world was full of new responsibilities. Both Stanley and his family learnt to care for the continuous supply of fresh orphans. He saw plenty of adult fish. But they always moved upstream, anxious to add to the nursery further upriver. He marvelled at their power in the water, and took like a child does with a parent to imitating their fin and tail movements..... Of course, as Stanley grew, he also became a bigger target for the many predators that searched his domain._ The big brown trout were the most dangerous. They would sit behind large rocks, or under cover of trees which hung over the river. On one occasion, Stanley and some of his brothers swam into the territory of one of these trout. At first it ignored them and they were happy to swim alongside the giant. Then completely without warning, it snapped into the shoal and swallowed two of the tiny parr. They scattered in all directions. He learned to keep out of the way of predators, very quickly after that adventure. It became a daily ritual, one that only the quickest and smartest of tiny parr learned to live with. As he grew, he moved further downstream. He learnt the currents of the river and moved comfortably through them, always moving, forcing the water through his gills and gleaning the oxygen from it._ He fed from the bottom dwellers and the nymphs and wet flies that used the river as a womb. Feeding in one area until the competition for food exceeded the supply and Stanley and his brothers moved further downstream. His days as a parr were like the years of childhood, full of fun and full of danger.... He soon transcended his two years as a parr, and moved downriver with winter's great storms and big water, to the Estuary......

Stanley was now almost 9 inches from tail to snout and would have been described in the human world ,as a smolt. The Estuary of the Tay became his world and here, where the river was tidal, he tasted salt water for the first time The Family were drawn by the tide and coaxed by the rain from Perth to Newburgh and up the freshwater channel, to Wester Flisk. Here he and the other smolts chased eels and hid from the seals that foraged around Flisk point. As there was no current to speak of, Stanley found his speed and control in this water exhilarating. He never tired of flexing his fins there, running from the seals provided him with plenty of practise. After some months of living between Newburgh and Wormit, Stanley and the other smolts were slowly and surely drawn by the tides, and the mysterious sounds reverberating along the ever deepening river bed,east ,towards the mouth of the estuary. Under the Rail Bridge and under the Road Bridge, up past the West lights at Tayport and eventually out ofthe fresh water channel into deeper waters. So filled with the spirit of adventure was he, that he thought only momentarily of the town he grew up in, as he passed it. His appetite drove him and the family of roaming smolts south for a while. They fed on sand eels mostly, the North-east coast of Fife was rich with them. Eventually they were drawn North towards the open sea.

The noise of the fishing and Oil industry reverberated along the sea bed and filled the water with strange vibrations. The water was dirty, overflowing with the taste and spoil of mankind. They turned Northeast for a while, drawn by their appetites, and curiosity towards the noise. Chasing shrimps and eels in the dark, deep, cold water. Travelling beneath the sea’s traffic of fishing trawlers and oil rig supply ships. The rigs filled the water with constant humming and rumbling. He followed the family through the maze of rigs and pipes that made the plundering steel continent. Here they were constantly being attacked by the seals and porbeagle sharks that sulked beneath the steel cities. Again, Stanley found his time in the river had prepared his body well. The swell of the North Sea added to his speed, billions of gallons of water rising and falling sometimes moving hundreds of feet in seconds. Out here, the water offered no resistance at all, and with the lift of the great swell he could easily outrun the seals and sharks. They swam between the divers that worked beneath the rigs. The Light and sparks from their welding torches threw arcs of illuminating green light into the darkness. Curiosity drew him to the men and he found himself looking for signs of recognition, from the faces beneath the helmets and masks. But they ignored him and carried on working, ignorant of the miracle he had been a party to. Always North, into colder, deeper water they journeyed on. Eventually, they turned West,, out towards the great Atlantic Ocean.

The sea-bed fell away from them eventually, leaving only the great black depths below . Stanley never felt the inclination to investigate the darkness beneath him. At night, south of Greenland, he heard the whales singing for the first time. Haunting the endless ocean with their old songs and calls to each other. The Atlantic Drift carried their voices for miles. Stanley and the shoal turned for the singing whales, further North towards the Arctic waters. Away from the great factory ships and deep-sea trawlers that plumbed the ocean's depths. North, where man was less in evidence. Here Stanley found the waters clear and cold. He found his new world rich and diverse in its many lifeforms. He swam amongst the whales and basking sharks. Gentle giants who seemed to revel in the company of other ocean-going The size and majesty of the great ocean, eventually overwhelmed him, stretched his perception of life, humbled him. Most of his family left the rich feeding grounds in favour of their river, after their first year in the ocean.Stanley continued to feed and frolic in the Ocean. He resisted the call home for 3 years. Gradually a larger shoal grew around him, a new family. But the call did come from far off, he dreamt one night he could hear the song of the Rock Pool, echoing faintly through the vast ocean. lapping at his conscious soul. under the flickering shafts of light, from an Arctic moon, Stanley and a thousand grilse began the journey south east , in pursuit of their life's challenge, another generation. perpetuate the worlds diminishing supply of wild and natural salmon.

At first they were guided by the whale-songs that had drawn them to the North Past the great shoals of cod and herring south of Shetland and then into the North Sea. He began to feel unclean inside himself and longed for the fast fresh water of the river, to wash him and then into the North Sea. louder and murkier than when he had passed through two years ago. It tasted of steel and oil. Hastened by the foul, muddy water, Stanley and the others swam continuously, never stopping, never resting. The entire shoal swam South and Stanley began to wonder if they were travelling too far. He felt his home was somewhere behind him, and so he dropped back into the shoal, with the intention of turning North again.

Just North of Hull the shoal ran straight into a drift net. Chaos and panic ensued. Instinctively and unlike the rest of the shoal, he shot upwards, through them, racing for the surface. The water full of thrashing, screaming, dying fish. And then The surface of the water parted as Stanley burst through it, He landed just outside the net as it closed in on his shoal. Stanley fled North again, away from the carnage. Only 50 fish escaped the net and Stanley led them, quickly and cautiously further out to sea. When Stanley eventually turned West for the Tay Estuary, only 15 fish followed him, the rest continued North. Together the 15 fish and Stanley looked and tasted for the freshwater channel that would lead them upriver. But the water was foul and poisoned. Debris, rubbish of all kinds, hung suspended in the water.

They waited then for winter's rain to flush downriver towards them, spilling its traceable path of freshness amongst the pollutants. Disease spread amongst them and sea-lice dug into their flanks while they waited. Eventually a great storm in the Glens, filled the lochs and tributaries and the fresh waters They followed the source of the freshness west to Tayport where they found the freshwater channel. Under the Road Bridge and under the Rail Bridge, to Wester Flisk, to Newburgh, upriver towards Perth. Just below the Friarton Bridge, Stanley and 10 of the other fish ran straight into a net.

His heart raced and he yelled out in anger. He thrashed along with the other fish. The water boiled around them. The net cut into his flanks and into his dorsal fin. He stopped fighting the trap while the other fish thrashed desperately, tangling themselves further. Miraculously, their frantic movements loosened the net around him. He released his anger and himself in one viciously powerful sweep of his tail. A sharp searing pain shot through his body, as half of his dorsal fin was sliced off by the taut net. But he was free, bitter and angry Stanley turned from the carnage and raced upriver. Through Perth and north with the Tay against its currents and constrictions upriver, to Dunkeld, under the bridge, through the Mousetrap, Niel Gows tree, through the lady Pool

to the Rock Pool where the whole miracle had begun. Sunlight filtered through the water and revealed a hen fish sitting in the tail of the Pool. They became residents of the pool for 3 days, while they waited for more rain to raise the river level. The next day he saw his world anew. Hundreds of families of Salmon fry and Parr with customary predators and prey occupying every gravel bed, every rush of fast white water. Late, On the third day fate landed an angler's lure onto her back.

The treble hook bit into her spine as the angler ˚retrieved his slack line. She was pulled away from Stanley into the middle of the pool. The angler tightened his grip on her, pulling her towards the bank. Stanley's decision to help her came in an instant and he rushed at her suddenly, pushing at her middle. The force of his lunge pushed her 15 yards downriver. The angler was caught off balance and he fell forwards into the water and into the river's merciless pull. The treble hook was torn from her back and lodged itself in Stanley's flank. As the angler was swept past them, He seized the moment of slackening on the line and leapt clear out of the water. As he landed, the hook was torn out of his side. He screamed with the pain and raced upriver with his wounded companion. Together they ran and ran, They left the Tay after Aberfeldy and turned into the River Lyon. From Fearnan all the way up the glen , they were hindered only by Nature's obstacles. At Bridge of Balgie Stanley cleared the falls at his first attempt.

And then and there, under the only tree left in the glen, amongst the reeds, Stanley fulfilled his quest. A thousand lives were ignited, spirits drawn from the heavens, a new generation of salmon were born to the river's womb and care and charge. drawn and exhausted from his wounds, he fell to the mercy of the rivers eternal flow. He drifted in and out of conciousness, as he was flushed downriver. It occurred to him, in his last remaining moments of lucidity, that he finally understood Gods great plan. And dwarfed by the magnitude of the Universe above him, Stanley commended his spent body, to the river,content in the knowledge that his flesh would feed the river and his soul would feed the heavens above. In the distance, he thought he could hear the voice of a cranky old angel. St Peter - 'I didn't get to where i am today not knowing how to Yodel'.