Lovely fish, Mark!
What a privilege to fish a salmon river.
Thanks. It's quite a 'democratic' sport up here on most rivers and beats. I have three rivers I fish fairly regularly. One is five minutes walk from my house on local club water, which costs all of £60 a season. It's a bit of a jungle on the banks at times, and can get quite busy in the more accessible bits, but can always find a quieter bit.
I pay a bit more for the second one, which is about 45 miles away, but still pretty good value and only 14 of us in the syndicate with about 7 miles of water in the glorious Galloway hills. We can take a guest and sell day tickets for one beat too.
My 'Rolls Royce' fishing is in a syndicate where we co own the fishing on a couple of miles of the River Doon about twenty miles away from me. We have a full time keeper there for the season, so it's not as cheap, but very well maintained and the fishing can be superb I've had 3 salmon over 20lb on it in recent years. Overall, it costs me about the same as a season ticket at a big football club, or membership of a good golf club.