I have always liked bridges, especially stone built arch bridges and in particular those that span rivers. I often wonder how much time and effort would have gone into their construction, how many hours of design and engineering to perfect a structure that was once imagined as a track across which, dry land could be accessed and maintained. To me they speak of a more recent past than the water that flows underneath them. If I drive across a bridge, I always have to stop and park nearby, and return to a place on the bridge that gives me the best view of the water below.
It’s rare that I can fish from a bridge, and fly fishing from a bridge is virtually impossible, and so I am forced by height and distance to watch and peer, and so for me, a bridge across a river is simply a place to watch the other world beneath, and to try and spot a fish or two. The knowledge of not being able to fish is a pause, a moment to think, and a chance to be still. I have seen unreachable Salmon sulking in the eddy behind the middle pier of the Kinclaven road bridge at Meikleour on the Tay, wild brown trout under Stoford Bridge on the River Wylie and fabulous Roach zig zag across the flow to take red maggots on the Avon at Longford, and then retreat back to the invisible shadows of the undercut banks beneath the brick walls that support the bridge. A world uninhibited, without hesitation or caution and I suspect, a world we knew when younger, sticks in hand and the rushing chase along the riverbank.

Bridge at Meikleour, River Tay

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