Madam, – If you can allow me to respond to Mr Derek Evans (Angling Notes, June 1st). I am a sea angler, and have been angling successfully since a child in the mid-1970s. He appears to miss the point of “catch and release” in sea angling.
The practice is a conscious self-recognition by anglers that they have a role to play in the conservation of fish stocks.
Part of this consciousness is that bass also make a tremendous contribution to the local economies of areas they inhabit, bringing in large numbers of anglers from abroad. As over-zealous anglers can easily impact bass stocks, many Irish sea anglers, regardless of the size of the fish (bass included), voluntarily practise catch and release.
Just because the killing of the bass at Courtown was legal (as I pointed out in my letter of May 8th), it does not mean that it was right, or that publicising it was the best thing to do.
For someone to be labelled a non-angler for objecting to the shortsighted killing of a fine fish is a sad reflection on the state of Irish angling today. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Derek Evans (Angling Notes June 1st), in response to a letter (May 8th) defends the practice of killing specimen fish based on the fact that catching such a creature is a once-in-a-lifetime and rare event for most anglers. He also notes that the writer of that letter (Ultan Ó Broin) is clearly not a sea angler.
As an angler I have to disagree with Mr Evans. Conservation efforts in this country should go further towards protecting rare species, especially when they are specimens.
On a Salmon fishing trip to the Kola Peninsula on the north west coast of Russia some years ago, I was delighted to find that any fish caught are firstly handled with protective gloves, weighed, measured, photographed and released alive.
If the captor desires a trophy to take home, a service is provided where a hand carved and painted representation of the catch is made based on the information recorded on the river.
The once-in-a-lifetime achievement of catching a 29lbs wild Atlantic salmon was enhanced in my view by watching the fish swim away. Unfortunately the rare event of catching specimen fish will only become rarer if anglers insist on killing them. – Yours, etc,