Letter to the Fishery Boards

   Beerse, 24/07/1998                                     

Dear Sirs, 

I  have been flyfishing for 12 years now,and I visited countries like France, Denmark, England, the whole Benelux, and made a lot of trips to Germany and Austria.Last May I visited Ireland for the first time of my life-of course for a (fly)fishing trip. The fishing in Ireland was very beautiful, but the mentality and attitude of Irish anglers came to me like a real "culture-shock"!

I stayed and fished the region around Castlebar, where I fished Mask, Corrib, Carra, and a few small loughs and rivers. The main course that struck me and stayed in my mind was that everyone was complaining about the slow fishing and the small,sparse trout.I heard also a lot of talking about "Catch-and-release" from gillies and boat-owners,but saw nobody actually really return even the smallest trout they caught!

This was-if you’ve visited Germany and Austria a lot of times-a real shock to me! I really cannot understand that there is not even a bag limit! While the Fishery Boards say they do a lot of work to improve trout habitat,and magazines are writing about bag limits,or how Catch-and-release would improve the fishing,everyone who catches a (small) trout is slamming that fish’ brains with a stone or on the edge of their boat! Was I on a fishing trip in 1998 or in 1958 ??!

I can give you a list of waters (loughs and rivers) in various countries in Europe and the U.S.A,where the fishing improved for 100 to 500 percent(catch rates), since C&Release was introduced! Yes, these figures seem unbelievable high, but reality shows it can make that difference.While Ireland could have the finest trout waters(perfect trout habitat,beautiful scenery),why don’t you want to practise C&R, or at least introduce a (very small) bag limit? Why do Fishery Boards exist, if everyone is killing-poaching every single trout?

Second question to the Irish people and their Fishery Boards ; Isn’t it very normal that in recent years ,with such a policy like I described above, and more angling pressure your catch rates are going down? Not to mention the water quality of the trout’s spawning rivers! These beautiful rivers are overgrown by weeds,due to too many fosfates?! And you are complaining about worse trout catches in recent years. This seems very logic to me if a fish can’t spawn or even grow to that size!

The solution for this ‘Kill-all-trout-you-catch’ is even more ridiculous: Kill all pike! Instead of curing the real causes of trout declines and introduce C&R,Irish Fishery Boards seem to like killing fish(?!). Or could it be that it is much easier to blame an innocent fish ,than changing your own attitude and mentality about trout fishing(and killing!).

Kind C&R-regards,

Erik Goos
etrout@dma.be