To support Spinfish with a donation please click here
Home | About Us | Contents | Where to Fish | SpinFish Photo Gallery | SpinFish Forum | Advertise | Contact Us | Links
Go on, Go on, Go on,
The Irish Drift Nets are Gone!
Drift nets are a type of gillnet used in a wide range of fisheries, usually deployed at or near the sea surface. Traditionally they were short, small-meshed nets deployed by small boats to target species such as herring. Unfortunately, today with monofilament in use, drift nets can be several miles long and barely visible to fish. Salmon, being creatures with an innate sense of navigation, follow the same migration route generation after generation making it easy for drift netters to intercept salmon in large numbers. Sadly drift nets are indiscriminate, taking entire runs of fish destined not only for the rivers of Ireland but those destined for Britain and Europe and as you can see from the photograph above it is not just salmon that are in danger. (Photograph from www.wdcs.org Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society)
The Irish have woken up to the truth that angling is more important to the economy and reputation of their nation than fish-mongering, now it is time for anglers everywhere to put their own house in order while staying aware of the dangers of illegal netting that is bound to follow. Having failed cynically to comply with the EU Habitat Directive which imposed a precautionary approach to salmon management with the objective of putting an end to indiscriminate mixed stock fishing the Irish government was issued with a Reasoned Opinion by the European Commission for non compliance with the Habitat Directive in 2005. Under great pressure to cease the plunder of multinational fish stocks the government set up the Irish Salmon Group this year to examine matters. The outcome and recommendation from these deliberations is that salmon drift netting should cease immediately.
In its report the Irish Salmon Group gave consideration to the impact of netting on salmon stocks and the ecological and economic consequences of the continuation of netting upon salmon stocks, angling interests and tourism. They also gave consideration to the impact of the cessation of netting on communities. It was clear to the Irish Salmon Group from the statistics that the continuation of mixed stock fishing was having a disastrous effect on salmon stocks in Ireland as well as in certain other UK and European rivers.
In order to soften the blow caused by their decision the Irish Salmon Group has proposed a financial package providing 25 million Euros in compensation to the nets men with a further 5 million being allocated to mitigate the impact on communities. As of 2007 there will be no more licensed drift netting off the Irish coast although other netting will continue in estuaries and on rivers where the fish caught are single source i.e. salmon derived from the breeding stock of the river system where the netting occurs.
At this time only one out of 14 rivers designated as Special Areas of Conservation are achieving sustainable stock levels. With the closure of the Irish drift net fishery the rivers of the south and south west of England and of Wales have a chance to forge a recovery in their rivers with an estimated 68000 fish being saved from the Irish drift nets next year (in all likelihood this figure will he much higher as up 50% of fish netted are spoiled by seals and are not recorded, there are also significant illegal catches)
All of the above is great news on the national and international scale however a note of caution against illegal netting and angling excesses is suggested here.
Netting has become a victim of its own success and greed where fishing has become an industrial process. What was once carried out by a few men taking a proportion of the salmon running our rivers has evolved into a few men and very large boats taking entire shoals of mixed stock fish from the seas around Greenland and the Faroes, on the west coast of Ireland and from our inshore waters.
While this fishing is now banned let us retain an awareness that the lure of profit will be too much for the Irish fishermen as it is for the Scots and English and fishermen of the Faroe Islands.
Recently I met the skipper of a 160 foot pelagic trawler working from a port in the North East Scotland. He had caught his first salmon on rod and line and was ever so chuffed. In a candid moment he said that over the years he had landed thousands of salmon with his trawler and none of those salmon had brought him so much pleasure as this rod caught fish, a telling statement.
Fish will continue to be taken at sea as long as there is a market and the value of wild salmon remains high and there are people in authority who have a Nelson complex (I see no fish!). What does a 160 foot trawler do when it shoots its miles of net and comes up inadvertently with salmon by the tonne? As long as there is a black fish market salmon will be intercepted on the high seas and off our coasts. Illegal netting does occur and will continue and it is against this activity we must direct future efforts.
The price of the net buy out will be far greater than the millions of Euros invested. There is a political price to pay that could represent the thin end of the wedge, challenging our right to fish at all. If the anti blood sport lobby, certain conservationist groups and tax payers in general hear of slaughter on our river banks the price we will pay in years to come could be our sport. It will serve no useful purpose for anglers to occupy the niche vacated by the Irish nets men by becoming fishmongers in their stead.
Throughout the late 1990’s up to and including this season I have witnessed and heard of outrageous excesses being committed on our rivers. Greed is not confined to the big net operators, it can be found on every river where anglers kill all they catch. I know of red hens fat with spawn knocked on the head and surreptitiously stashed in cars by anglers without conscience. The salmon angler who takes a car boot load of gravid fish for smoking does the sport a disservice and adds grist to the mill of the antis who can ask with authority – why should millions of pounds of tax payers money be spent on the conservation of fish stocks just to allow blood sportsmen and women to satisfy their distasteful excesses?
Make no mistake, angling has won a great victory but we must look to keep our house in order. Moderation is the key to the continuation of our sport and this may be an appropriate time to give real consideration to the tag system. Slaughter on the river banks must stop and it is for us as a community of anglers to address this issue of excesses among ourselves for I am sure if the bureaucrats and antis get to legislate on this matter they will serve their own agenda. Now is not the time for dithering. Many good people have done their part to achieve this momentous outcome, it is now time for angling to take decisive action to ensure that we play our part in protecting the salmon for future generations.
Our thanks must go to those people who have fought a long hard battle to a successful conclusion: Naill Green of ‘Stop Drift Netting Now’, Brian Marshall of the Wessex Salmon & Rivers Trust and Orri Vigfusson of the North Atlantic Salmon Trust. If you wish to view the Irish Salmon Group report in its entirety the Wessex Salmon and River Authority web site carries a direct link, go to www.wsrt.org.ok
Contents I Where to Fish I Advertise I Contact Us I Links I Site Map
SpinFish and the SpinFish logo © SpinFish 2007. All images copyright of SpinFish