Tweed's 'King of the Salmon' March Tale
The Tweed's 'King of the Salmon' March tale
Origins and seasonal etiquette
A Border legend of a fabled giant Atlantic salmon dubbed the "King of the Salmon" has been retold by ghillies and beat-keepers along the River Tweed for more than a century. The story migrated from fireside yarn to on-river code: at the first spring meet each March, visiting anglers traditionally defer casting into certain pools, allow a senior ghillie the "first fly", and maintain a restrained tone until midday. That etiquette reads as practical courtesy but carries mythic weight—an enactment designed to honour a fish too legendary to be disturbed.
Archival echoes
Not merely oral lore, the tale appears in beat-books and diaries held in local repositories such as the National Library of Scotland and the Berwickshire Archive Centre. Excerpts in those collections include terse March entries: "Saw him rise at Spittal — King of the March" and notes on a ritualised lighting of the first fly from peat embers before the meet. These entries suggest the ritual was both symbolic claim and communal ceremony framed by Victorian and Edwardian anglers.
Present-day keepers
Today the narrative persists in photographs and portraits of Tweed anglers who reunite each March. Modern ghillies describe the tale as cultural glue: it polices behaviour on the water, links generations across beats, and keeps the Tweed's spring rituals alive as much as its fish.