PICTURES: River Spey opened by outgoing Fisheries Board director Roger Knight, at Aberlour in Moray
ONE of the Spey's key figureheads yesterday had the honour of opening the river for the first time.
Roger Knight, the director of the Spey Fisheries Board for the last 18 years, officially began the angling season by pouring a bottle of Aberlour whisky from the Penny Bridge into the waters below.
Stepping down from his post in June, guest of honour Mr Knight was piped by Richard Anderson onto the bridge alongside wife Beryl Bokor-Knight before a crowd of eager anglers.
However, his next move will not take him far from Speyside.
He is set to become the first chief executive of the Spey Catchment Initiative, which he created a decade ago.
The organisation, he said, will undertake landscape-scale projects to help boost the prospects of the Spey and benefit now-endangered Atlantic Salmon.
"18 years in the job is a long time, and a lot has happened during that time," he said.
"I think I'm leaving the organisation in a better state than it was in when I arrived, but the state of our iconic Atlantic salmon has a big question mark over it.
"The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) have put it on the red list of threatened species.
"So it is now endangered.
"And we're working very hard to try to reverse that process.
"We very much hope to make the river more sustainable and resilient to the climate and biodiversity emergencies, and help, we hope, to reverse the fortunes of our iconic fish."
However, he added, there remained a strong sense of hope among those fishing on the river.
In his remarks before taking to the bridge, Mr Knight paid tribute to the ceremony's previous piper Alan Sinclair, who recently passed away.
The event was again sponsored by Aberlour Distillery, with the Aberlour Hotel providing refreshments to the crowd.
Reverend Andrew Kimmitt also offered a blessing to the river and gathered angler, ending with: "Amen. And tight lines."
