Denmark's great salmon restoration story. The Skjern was straightened and drained in the 1960s, then painstakingly re-meandered from 1999 — and the salmon came back. Now the country's premier Atlantic salmon river, flowing broad and steady through central Jutland heathland to Ringkøbing Fjord. Spring fish from April, peak run July through September. Mandatory catch-and-release for wild salmon has built numbers steadily. The river also holds sea trout and wild browns, but the salmon are why you come here. Riverfisher provides separate catch-report sections for both salmon and sea trout. A sand-and-clay bed shapes this river. Atlantic salmon are managed under strict national quotas (DTU Aqua) — each river runs a limited annual kill quota and switches to catch-and-release once it is filled; check the quota before fishing.

• Sand and clay