Ted O Riordans's ANGLING COLUMN in the KERRYMAN NEWSPAPER - February 9th 2001
Minister Fahey talks to anglers in Galway

ANGLERS walked and anglers talked on Saturday last and hopefully the sanity and common sense plea which has been laboured in this column in recent weeks will prevail and the current impasse on the question of tagging salmon and filling up a logbook can be amicably resolved before the season is too much older.
The Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Frank Fahey, TD, is to be complimented on inviting representatives of the Federation of Irish Salmon & Sea Trout Anglers to meet with in Galway on Saturday morning last, prior to the anglers' protest in Eyre Square.
Representing FISSTA at the meeting with the Minister were chairman Noel Carr from Donegal, president Richard Behal from Killarney, northern regional secretary Frank O'Donnell and executive member Billy Smith from Galway.
The meeting, which was described by chairman Carr as cordial, addressed the concerns expressed by FISSTA in relation to the new tagging and logbook regulations.
"The outcome of this meeting will hopefully resolve our concerns and lead to the Irish Government partaking in the ultimate solution to the conservation of the wild Atlantic salmon. The meeting, which started at midday at the Glen Oaks Hotel, was described as cordial and businesslike and lasted 45 minutes and would have gone on longer were it not for the fact that the FISSTA members had a protest commitment to fulfil in Eyre Square, said Mr. Carr, speaking to The Kerryman.
"The Minister acknowledged that FISSTA had genuine fears and their concerns were based on genuine conservation issues and not just the inconvenience to anglers that tagging would cause. Based on this acknowledgement, the Minister verbally addressed likely resolutions to our concerns which he would confirm after the Salmon Commission meeting of February 6,'' said Mr. Carr.
Over 400 anglers took part in what was certainly an impressive protest in Galway's Eyre Square, with the placards and a selection of words varying between wit and wisdom adding comedy and colour to an occasion which was good-humoured but also deadly serious.
In welcoming anglers from Kerry to Donegal to the Galway protest, chairman of the Federation of Irish Salmon & Sea Trout Anglers' Noel Carr told his audience that they were meeting in Galway as conservationists and their aim was to conserve the wild Atlantic salmon and not to help in hastening the day when the wild salmon would no longer be seen in our rivers and lakes.
"Your Federation is committed to conservation and that is why we're here today.
The alarming decline in salmon numbers continues to drop from 12,000 tons in the mid-seventies to 2,000 tons this year.''said Mr. Carr.
The Donegal man said that the experts agree that there are six main reasons for the decline in salmon numbers and they are habitat, feeding grounds, climatic problems, fish farm pollution, seals and predators. These are natural phenomena, but there are a couple of more which they have failed to identify and they are man-made. They are the nets and the politicians who have failed to make the courageous decisions to conserve the salmon.
Mr. Carr told his audience that he wanted to send a very clear message to the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources and the people in his Department who, the Donegal man said, were responsible for anglers being in Galway on Saturday. "We want to send a very clear message to Minister Fahey that the tagging scheme as it stands will be opposed because it presents opportunities for the laundering of poached fish,'' said Mr. Carr.
He described the proposed regulations being introduced by the Department of the Marine as "ill-thought out'' and a total waste of money and effort.
Referring to his organisation's previous requests to the Department of the Marine for
tagging of the commercial catch with quotas, Mr. Carr said: "What we were given was tagging of the recreational angler and no quotas on the commercial netsmen. That is some legacy, it is a tachograph on the angler,'' said Mr. Carr. (Maybe he could have used the word "tagograph'').
"Tags without quotas on the commercial nets are a total waste of time and money. Moreover this census - census is what the Department calls it - will not put one extra salmon back in the rivers of Ireland, but only delay the day by three years when the quotas are put on the nets,'' said the Donegal man.
Mr. Carr went on to mention the five concerns which his organisation put to the Minister for the Marine last year, but which had not yet been addressed.
"We asked the Minister nicely last year to resolve our five concerns, but we're still waiting. We asked him this morning again and hopefully next week we'll get some results, but we're still waiting at this stage,'' said Mr. Carr.
He went on to say that FISSTA's concerns were raised as far back as the first Salmon Commission meeting last April, without results. "We have explored every channel to achieve these, but to no avail. We have been ignored, leaving us with no replies. Nothing resolved, two months into the season and still nothing,'' said Mr. Carr.
The Donegal man outlines those unresolved concerns. " We want a ban on the sale of salmon and sea trout outside the season as it is at present. The second is that tags must not be used to extend the netting season, as any attempt to extend the netting calendar
by tags will result in the complete demise of the salmon stocks in the shortest time possible. Under no circumstances will FISSTA tolerate such decimation,'' said the Federation Chairman.
The third concern for resolution is that all farmed fish must be tagged at the point of harvest. "Bar-coding of the box is a sop,'' said Mr. Carr, who alleged that there was potential for abuse in the sale of wild salmon through this avenue which is the second of the two black holes outlines by FISSTA.
The fourth concern was protection. Mr. Carr stated that "protection staff must be deployed on the high seas and laws must be enforced with new creative measures which must be adopted.''
The fifth concern was the information requested from anglers in the logbook and
judging by the mood of the anglers who protested in Galway on Saturday, the logbook as it stands will not be a priority in an anglers' bag this season.
One man who gave a solemn undertaking in Galway on Saturday last that he would not be accounting through a logbook as to how he spent his leisure hours was PRO of the Federation of Irish Salmon & Sea Trout Anglers, Dan Joy of Listowel.
Addressing anglers, Mr Joy said: "We are told by the Galway Minister that this scheme has to do with counting salmon. Well it has nothing to do with counting salmon. You can tag salmon and the logbooks are designed to count and tag anglers and we won't have it,'' said the Killocrim angler.
"In a free society I will not account for my movements in my leisure time. I have enough to do in my work, in parking my car, in paying my bills, but on my leisure time on the river bank I will not account to anybody for my movements,'' said Mr. Joy, to the cheers of his fellow anglers.
"I have no problem in accounting for what I catch. If people want to count fish, that's fine,'' said Mr. Joy.
Referring to fishing reports such as those that are carried in this column weekly throughout the season, the Federation's PRO said: "Each week in my part of the country we publish who catches what, and even what they catch them with. We have no problem with that, we are not hiding anything, but I will not account for my movements in a logbook. I have sworn this and I will stick to it,'' said Mr. Joy who also stated that the recent regulations were ill-thought out.
"We have consistently opposed this scheme because it is ill-thought out and will do nothing to reduce poaching. In fact anybody can have gabhaills - to use a term from my own county - of tags, you can have wheelbarrows full of tags if you want them and you can suddenly legitimise the sale of poached salmon, so it is not designed to save salmon.'' said Mr. Joy.
Putting forward a policy favoured by FISSTA, Mr. Joy said: "Let's have a ban on the sale of fish early in the year. "We have offered that at a pain to ourselves and the organisation by it was rejected, it was thrown back in our faces and we were told it couldn't be done. If nobody can sell fish before mid-May, that will take the pressure off the salmon and we must think of the salmon,'' said Mr. Joy, who went on to offer some advice to fishing tackle dealers.
"Somewhere around the country there are tackle dealers who are enthusiastic for this logbook scheme and are pressurising anglers to take them. They are telling people that this is the way to go; they are telling people they can't buy a licence without them.
I'd like to remind those enthusiastic people that it's the anglers who keep the tackle shops going and not Ministers and Department officials in Leeson Lane, "We are a responsible group, our clubs around the country have a ban on prawn fishing and using a gaff; we can't take dogs to the river and God knows we have ourselves tied in knots. But there is one further knot that we will not tie ourselves into and that is we will not account for our movements in our leisure time,'' concluded Mr. Joy.
President of the Federation of Irish Salmon & Sea Trout Anglers, Richard Behal, in an impassioned address to anglers reminded them of the last rod war which they fought and won and would continue this fight until their rights were respected.
For three long years we stayed together and never flinched on the trout licence question. We want the current problem of logbooks and tags satisfactorily resolved and we will continue the fight until that satisfactory resolution has been achieved, because we have proved in the past that we have the resilience to fight for a just cause, said the Killarney man.
Me. Behal said that anglers were the watchdogs of water for the State and were it not for the anglers and angling clubs the quality of water in many of our rivers and lakes would be such that a salmon would not survive in them. "We are the people who are responsible for maintaining our wild Atlantic stocks,'' said the FISSTA president.
Mr. Behal referred to the logbook demands as being an infringement of our civil liberties, where we have to tell the State when we're going fishing, where we're going fishing and how long we spend fishing on each and every occasion. He warned everybody listening to him in Eyre Square that it was the sport of angling that was being logged today, but it could be any one of several outdoor recreational pursuits that would be logged tomorrow.
Mr. Behal's address was roundly applauded.
THANK YOU: Kerry was well represented in the Galway protest on Saturday, with buses from Tralee, Killarney and Listowel, while a number of anglers used their own transport for the occasion.
PRO of the Federation of Irish Salmon & Sea Trout Anglers, Dan Joy, told The Kerryman that he was very proud of the Kerry people who travelled, many at considerable inconvenience. "I knew we could depend on them and they did not leave us down,'' said Mr. Joy.
FERMOY PROTEST: Anglers also protested in Fermoy against the tagging and logbook regulations on Saturday last. FISSTA treasurer Ed Stack of Kilkenny spoke out against the introduction of the logbooks and tags in their present form and the meeting was also addressed by former FISSTA chairman Luke Boyle of Kilkenny.
Fermoy man and FISSTA secretary Tommy Lawton was on protest duty two days earlier on Carrigrohane Bridge on the river Lee, so it was a case of all hands on deck.