Irish Federation of Pike Angling Club's reply to Mr Eamon Cusack, CEO Shannon Regional Fisheries Board

2nd March 2004

Dear Mr Cusack,

We are in receipt of yours of 20th February and note its contents.

We would comment as follows.

1. We are somewhat confused at the Boards interpretation of our letter regarding our considered views on gillnetting. In terms of the Boards rejection of our comments, we have never stated that gillnets are not used to target pike but that large numbers of other fish and indeed other wildlife at times do die in gillnets. We feel the Board is reluctant to publicly acknowledge this. In terms of supervision, while we acknowledge that gillnets may be supervised on a daily basis, this supervision does not take place on a continuous basis and therefore irrespective of the duty of care undertaken by the public, the Shrfb do not control how and when a member of public may inadvertently find themselves in a potentially life threatening situation. We would also like to remind you of your acknowledgement that the Board does carry out some predator control operations in order to redress imbalances caused by pollution. In this instance we feel it could be interpreted as a contradictory philosophy that predator control operations take place under the premise of scientific evidence, which at present may not be discredited, but which may not recognise the poor environmental condition of some of the Wild Trout fisheries and as such, this scientific evidence may not be applicable in any way but simply to give credence to the culling at any cost of pike and other fish.

2. We welcome the Boards move away from the use of gill nets.
In your region, in this regard please confirm the duration of the trial period when electro fishing will be used. Please also confirm that all pike over 80cm will be returned unharmed to the same water.

3. We note that your Board have endorsed the pike policy report with some amendments. Please advise us what areas were of concern to your Board and that your Board thought needed to be amended.

4. At our meeting in October we raised a number of issues in relation to pike angling on Lough Sheelin namely.

A. Allow pike angling on a 12 months basis
B. Allow all legal methods to be used
C. Allow the use of larger dead baits.

Your Chairman undertook to raise these issues at Board level. We still await the Board decisions.

We note that in relation to pike issues your Board always follows scientific advice from the Central Fisheries Board. In relation to the 3 issues listed above we have written to C.F.B. asking that whether there is any suitable reason why A.B. and C. should not be allowed. We trust that your Board will accept any advice on this issue, which they may give.

5. We too are concerned about the declining numbers of pike in some parts of the Shannon. We would welcome a copy of the 2003 stock assessment report, which was carried out with the assistance of C.F.B.

Stocks, pollution, promotion etc are areas where this Federation can and should work closely with your Board. You will remember that we had suggested the establishment of coarse/pike sub-committee of your Board to address these issues.

6. The issue of the coarse angling permit will be discussed at our A.G.M. next Sunday. We note that you wrote that income from the permit had increased by 35% over 2002. We believe that the cost of the permit rose from €30 to €35, an increase of almost 17%. This would indicate that permit sales didn't increase at all, but actually fell.

The fact that gill netting will effectively cease for the term of the current Board set up would encourage us to examine the permit issue in a different light. We note the Boards commitment to use funds raised from the sale of coarse angling permits on coarse angling projects. Please confirm that this spend will be in addition to the usual allocation from coarse projects and not just replacing it.

We would welcome a representative of the Board at our A.G.M. next Sunday in the Greville Arms Hotel (2 O'clock) to address these issues.


Yours truly,

_____________
John Crudden
Hon Secretary

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