Letter to Angling Ireland

Dear mister Quigley,

My first trip to Ireland I made in 1969. I fished the Bandon River for Salmon, that very first year. I was in Mallow (Jack Bolster I remember very well)for the Black water and after the water levels stayed as low as they were, we finally went to Lough Derg to fish for pike. The latter more or less saved our first trip to Ireland. We enjoyed it tremendously. Since that year I visited your country almost every year, sometimes twice. Last year I was down for three times. I was down 43 times altogether. I fly fished for trout, salmon and seatrout, for rudd, perch and for pike. What I met was always special and as wonderful as possible. So I wrote many stories and articles about the wonderful fishing in Ireland. About Clare and Gonnemara. About the Royal Canal as well as Loughs Mask, Corrib and Conn. I wrote articles on Peterson pipes, Guinness, Irish Distillers, made walks for a magazine in Nirc valley and on Inish Bofin, for another article I flew with Irish Helicopters over the western coast to photograph the lighthouses of Irish lights. Over the years I stayed in Pontoon Bridge hotel, Delphi lodge, Abbeyglenn Castle, Portarra lodge and Caherbolane farmhouse to name a few. I have to tell you in al honesty that I like your country so much that I dream or at least think about it every day. I met the nicest people of the world, and doing so I made many a friend. Dear friends The Irish.

The reason for my writing is that the WRPB has decided to cull the large lakes Mask and Corrib for pike. They made a mess of it by doing so in 1998. For reasons we all know. Pro and many cons. Some say (and I agree) that by doing so they kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. For fishing for pike can be done the whole year around, the trout seasons is much shorter. Anyway, I hope you are willing to listen (to someone from abroad, who does not want to interfere with an Irish matter, on the other hand though EU funding is used to kill completely healthy animals, so at least I am entitled to speak my mind on the matter.

I am pretty sure that the pike anglers also wish to see these wonderful limestone Loughs return to their formal glory; brimful of wonderful quality brown trout and with a pike population that lives in dynamic equilibrium with the other fish species in the Loughs. Sorting out the problems regarding entrophicat spawning redd and nursery stream degradation, along with the proposal implementation of gill netting programmes of pike stocks will only lead to an explosion of miniature pike. Which will ironically prey heavily on the trout fry, fingerling populations. With the consequent scientifically proven end result of no large adult pike population to forage on the small destructive jack pike (all be it sexually nature) at between 1-3 lbs. weight, which readily taken the flies of the trout fishermen and predate heavily on juvenile trout stocks. Thus by doing so undermining all the nursery stream enhancement work so badly needed.

What the situation currently requires I think is the judicious use of drum nets (which selectively target and capture pike up to approx. 5lbs in weight) to be raced in the nursery streams, in the mouths of streams and rivers and in the bays into which these natural streams flow.

Along with this programme, it is critical to put into effect an "intensive care" programme to nurse back to good heath those spawning nursery streams. That can be enhanced in the short term for greatest recruitment of juveniles to the Corrib Mask/Carra system for the minimum expenditure of materials, labour etc. in order to maximise scarce E.U. resources. Also, the voluntary (?) implementation by the trout anglers of a "bag limit" and "catch and release" programmes. Particularly during the vulnerable bricin (minnow) pre trolling season and may fly dapping season will dramatically turn around the fortunes of the trout populations. This can be clearly evidenced by way of close study of (anglers catches in the two seasons post to the rod-licence dispute had ceased, when anglers and fishing clubs around the great lakes reported huge increase in "trout returns"... (When a friend tells me about a last year held trout festival, where Mr. (anti pike lobby) R. O'Grady wins the first price with 12 (rather dead) trout (approx. weighing at least a good 15 lbs.). The nrs. 2 and 3 had 21 fish in between them. And all other anglers caught trout that very day!.. Then everybody will understand and should agree that these practises will never help the trout stocks in years (even if we would be able to kill every single pike on these lakes...). Maybe Irish trout fishermen should first start to consider to release more of their catch instead of killing every fish that takes their fly. Catch and release as it is practised all over the globe.

Were the pike populations on a hunger strike during the two seasons of this earlier mentioned "rod war" ?? No of course they were not. With the tremendous increase in people leisure time, the large unemployment component in the population of the west of Ireland. Great advances in fishing tackle technology (in particular the use of sonar/fish finders by some commercially orientated trout trollers), better boats and engines and not at last a far greater knowledge and understanding of the target species we are interested in, namely trout. There is a far greater exploitation of trout stocks (indeed for all fish) by man now than ever before on these great Loughs.

The above state of affairs spells ultimate doom for the trout populations as well as for the pike, because all the great angling writers of years gone by: Henri Cholmundeley Pennel, John Biekerdyke, Alfred Jardine, R.B. Marston, J.W. Martin (The Trent-otter), W.M. Senior (Red spinner), H.I. Regan (Dunne) and not to forget many great Dutch, French and German writers. They were all devoted and dedicated trout fishermen. But they also loved fishing for pike on the great Loughs of the West: Conn, Carra, Mask and Corrib. They reported that they did meet out there in their articles, when making their regular pilgrimages to the West. From the 1850 's to the 1930's approx. Where they enjoyed excellent brown trout fishing on the western Loughs, as well as a superb fishing for 'monster pike'.

I am sure you will agree Mr. Quigley that it is only since man's interference since the early 1950's with the establishment of the I.F.T. and laterally the Regional Fisheries Boards and the C.F.B. with the expenditure of resources on an on-going, relentless culling programme of pike stocks that the dynamic equilibrium of the more than wonderful Loughs has shifted. Shifted in the wrong direction. The complete inertia by the W.R.F.B. in recent years in tackling the pollution eutrohication problems which was clearly signalled by Dr David Santillo of Greenpeace in 1995(!?!) report... The sheep-overgrazing situation (another hurrah for the E.U.) on upper Corrib/Mask catchment along with the destruction of spawning redd/nursery stream habitat have all contributed to the poor recruitment of juvenile trout stocks over tile past years.

To blame the pike for all this is only fooling ourselves on a scale only humans are able to and making an environmental scape-goat of the pike. This fully allows the W.R.F.B. and the C.F.B. to wiggle of the hook (pardon the punch..) and not to be made accountable for the wasting of scarce financial and human resources in their complete mis-management of these unique environments.