Exploring twists and turns of a river's life

DEVON can be defined by its rivers. The mighty Tamar separating the county from Cornwall, the Exe that starts on moorland and ends downstream of a city, the Dart with its Rhine-like sweeps and curves and the Taw and the Torridge that seem to defy geography, flowing northwards to join each other in a spectacular estuary to meet the sea.

- PHILIP BOWERN

Dozens more smaller rivers, streams and tributaries flow through the county and among them is the Teign, which starts its life as two tiny moorland streams around 500 metres above sea level in the Dartmoor granite and flows through the soft clays of the Bovey Basin and the market town of Newton Abbot to meet the sea at Teignmouth.

A new book has been published to tell the story of the river - a story that, in part, will be depressingly familiar to anglers and conservationists everywhere namely the decline in salmon numbers.

That crisis for the King of Fish, however, helped provide the impetus and the support to get this beautiful book, written by Neil Yeandle with photographs by Mike Rego, into print.

The River Teign Restoration Project was set up with the aim of improving the long-term survival chances of the Atlantic Salmon. The project was launched against a background of a decline of 60% in the numbers of salmon and sea trout returning to spawn in the river between 2014 and 2023.

But this is not a book interested only in fish and fishing. As Neil Yeandle writes in his introduction: "A Teign book about fish, fishing and fishermen would have limited appeal."