Plight of salmon dominates conversation in Mayo fishing circles

COUNTRYTFILE

THE plight of salmon, as well as the plight of salmon anglers and those who operate tourist angling facilities, continues to dominate conversation in fishing circles up and down the country.

Locally, it is the future of the Cong salmon hatchery, a facility which has almost single-handedly bouyed the migratory fish population of Lough Corrib for decades, which has caught the attention of many.

Inland Fisheries Ireland want to cease operations there, and to leave the wild salmon population to their own devices. Those who know about such things state the numbers of salmon running the Corrib system are high enough to ensure the viability of the species without human intervention.

Yet in the next breath we hear the exact opposite – that there are no longer enough salmon to allow anglers to take fish home from the rivers and lakes in question.

So which is it? Are there enough fish or aren't there? A great many people want to know. Nobody seems able to provide a satisfactory or coherent answer.

Suppose the answer is no, that the Corrib fish are in the same dire straits as those in almost every other river system in the country. In that case, closing the hatchery and depriving the lake of the tens of thousands of juvenile fish produced there each year makes no sense at all.

But what if we learned that, yes, fish stocks in the Corrib are so healthy that releasing more that have been raised in an artificial environment is of no benefit at all? In that case, those operating the hatchery have done a very fine job and having produced the goods in that department, surely they could do the same for other fisheries up and down the coast.

Certainly, the small rivers that drain the west of Mayo could do with an input of juvenile fish. These could easily be produced in sufficient quantity so that tens of thousands of fry, or older parr, could be planted in waters where wild salmon have all but disappeared.

Perhaps a small part of the decision to close down the operation in Cong is mere cost-cutting by an organisation struggling to stay afloat beneath the weight of various controversies and expenses.

We need to be careful here, for the man on the ground, with whom lies responsibility for upholding legislation and holding wrongdoers to account, should not be the target of ire. No indeed, these are hardworking men and women who love their jobs, who have the best interest of wild fish and the health of waterways at heart. They don't have things easy, yet being the visible face of fishery protection, it is they who get the flack.

Most of these know what is needed. But they don't get to make the decisions, only to enforce them whether they wholeheartedly agree or not.

One very good suggestion has been that if Inland Fisheries Ireland do indeed cease to operate the Cong hatchery, it could be freely leased to a conglomerate of angling clubs, whose home waters would benefit from the production of salmon fry.

Neither do we need to do all the work, for most of it has already been done for us.

In Iceland, declining wild salmon populations led to innovative and highly successful work with hatchery fish.

In Scotland, a number of similar projects have produced outstanding results, notably on the River Carron, where fishery owners have funded groundbreaking work.

Even in England, the River Tyne has seen salmon runs rise from a mere 700 to over 13,000 in just a few years.

What do these success stories have in common? Hatcheries, and men with passion.