Loch Garry

At Loch Garry, you need to get pretty close to see any evidence of the salmon pens, as they move gently in time with the loch, and the nets on the 15-metre square pens sit several metres below the surface. The low-profile of the salmon farm is in part due to the fact that pens are not normally clustered in groups of more than ten, spread across three different areas – designed to minimise the impact on the local environment, much of which has remained unchanged for thousands of years.

“I care about my fish,” says Gregor Donald, who has managed the freshwater salmon farm on the stunning Loch Garry, just north of Fort William, for 12 years now. “We grow young salmon, known as parr, to their smolt stage when they are ready for seawater. This usually takes about 10 months of good, careful husbandry, resulting in top quality Spring smolts ready for seawater pens and more steady growth.

We don’t like to stress our fish by handling them unnecessarily, so our farm plan sets out in quite complex detail how we minimise the handling and movement of fish to ensure the potential for problems is reduced. Essentially, we try to just let the fish grow while monitoring their condition and health. Welfare and success go hand-in-hand – I’m convinced of that after all these years in the salmon business.

Gregor is particularly proud then of winning an award from his employer – a large silver cup – rewarding Loch Garry for production of the best Spring Smolts. And he puts that success down to the skill and experience of the team at Loch Garry. Most of Gregor’s staff at Loch Garry have over 20 years’ experience in the business and that’s something you just can’t buy.

“When the young smolts leave here, I’m happy that they’ve had the best start and have every chance of growing into fine quality salmon when they are moved into seawater.”

And with up to 1.5million salmon successfully making that journey every year, you can understand why care and attention to detail can lead to very impressive results.