A radical overhaul of fisheries in the North is needed if inland fishing is to survive long into the 21st century, a committee of the Northern Assembly has heard.
The Culture, Arts and Leisure Committee, which is conducting hearings on inland fisheries, was told that the North was "eating the seed" of its salmon stocks. Mr Frank Quigley, an angling enthusiast, called for a 10-year ban on netting both salmon and trout in order to allow stocks time to recover.
If this was not done, very soon there would be no salmon to fish.
"Somebody has to do something and we believe that you as our elected representatives are the people to do it," he said. The committee was also told that a culture of secrecy dominated the way government departments had managed angling and it needed to be broken.
Another angler, Mr Harold Avery, told the committee he believed the Department of Agriculture's fisheries division, the Fisheries Conservancy Board and the Department of the Environment could be quicker to respond.
Mr Avery alleged that over the past 42 years, more than 150,000 tonnes of contaminated aluminium sludge had been dumped in Northern Ireland's waterways.
In some cases this had been carried out by government departments, he said.
The committee also received evidence from the Ulster Farmers' Union, Garrison and Lough Melvin anglers and Lough Neagh fishermen's co-op society.