Latest News
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New Zealand based scientist writes to Minister re salmon farm risk
May 18th, 2013The Galway independent, in an article also picked up by the Atlantic Salmon Federation, reports that Professor Mark Costello of Auckland has written to Minister Coveney re the risk of mass salmon fatalities arising from sea lice . The departmental response is depressingly familiar claiming that Irish protocols on sea lice represent the best practice internationally.
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Another big springer landed
May 16th, 2013Another big fish has been caught, this time by TiernanSludds at Enniscorthy. Tiernan, an experienced angler who has caught plenty of Slaney fish, estimates the fish would easily have hit the magical 20 pounds mark on the scales and you’d find it hard to argue with him on the evidence of this photo.
He also landed another fish about 12 pounds and lost 2 more during the day. This is the third 20 pounder landed in the space of three weeks on the Slaney and while the river is noted for it’s big Spring fish in recent years it is unheard of for it to produce more than the very occasional fish of this quality.
What’s the reason for this significant improvement? Many would argue that the banning of drift nets at sea and the absence of draft nets in the estuary has given these fish a much better chance of returning to spawn. Now that the netting gauntlet is gone we can hope to see many more fish like this one in the coming years, and maybe even one or two more this season.
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Scottish Fish fam had pesticide residue levels 400 times above approved limit
May 12th, 2013The Herald Scotland reported last week on the fact that Scotland’s environment agency has found 12 salmon farms pesticide residues above the approved level. One Marine Harvest site was reported as having levels over 400 times the approved level!
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Report week ending 12 May
May 12th, 2013As expected the fresh water during the week brought in a run of new sealiced fish. Although fish were landed at Enniscorthy, Solsboro, Riversdale, Clohamon, the Wood and Kildavin many seemed to be turbocharged and heading upriver fast. This was borne out by reports of 4 (or 5?) fish off the Tullow stretch between Friday and Saturday. Successful anglers included Andy Kelly (Kildavin), Bill Connolly (Clohamon), Teddy Synott (Riversdale) and Francis Connolly (Solsboro). It was not all easy fishing with 4 anglers on one beat (including the webmaster) seeing nothing all day while 2 miles up stream it was a red letter day with 3 fish to one rod.
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A couple of interesting items in the press and media
May 7th, 2013The Atlantic Salmon Federation have released a very good video on catch and release which can been seen here. Closer to home the Irish Angler’s digest has a very interesting article by Edward Fahy on the two, widely quoted studies of the effect of sea lice on smolt mortality.