Catching The Tide: Salmon Net Fishing in Scotland

Spanning the last thirty years, Catching the Tide is a lyrical portrayal of salmon net fishing in Scotland. Through his photography, Colin McPherson introduces us to the men he met and worked with over three decades as they strived to make a living from a way of life that stretches back many generations and which has all but disappeared from the country’s coastal communities today.

The practice of catching salmon and sea trout using traditional forms of nets and traps dates back centuries, and the laws dictating where, when and how the fish can be caught and sold were put in place in the 19th century.

Over the following one hundred years, tens of thousands of men (it has always been an almost exclusively male job) made a seasonal living at fishing stations in every coastal community.

They worked with the flow of the tides and the rhythms of the seasons to supply Scottish salmon to customers in this country and abroad.

By the mid-1990s, however, a complicated mix of economic and environmental factors meant the industry was in sharp decline, making Colin McPherson’s work a race against time to photograph the last salmon net fishermen.