Irish Extra July 2022
I have a farmer neighbour a few fields behind who has a diary Herd as well as chickens, ducks, Geese and a pair of lovely Alpacas. The river runs between us and from here and back a couple of miles along the river is a hot bed for fox activity. One early morning this week while returning home from some night work I counted (using a thermal spotter) 6 foxes in one field consisting of an adult and five cubs, the next field held 2 grown foxes and the next a single one. 9 foxes in a half mile stretch and add to that a den of cubs almost directly across the other side of the river and I was surprised she hadn’t contacted me earlier. Just today she arrived at the door and asked had I been seeing many foxes around while exercising the dogs on her side as she had been having terrible trouble recently with foxes in the yard and killing poultry almost nightly – I told her I had saw quite a few but, on my side, however I would take a look in her immediate area as soon as possible. This morning returning from my night work again I was watching the areas I had saw the activity on during the week and while on a high road was able to see a fox mousing on my neighbour’s field with the help of a thermal spotter. I decided to go that way for a look and drove past to see a well grown cub in the middle of a freshly cut silage field. I knocked off the engine, walked back 100yrds and rested my gun on the wall before a satisfying thump brought it to the ground. I’m not a fox shooter, I never have been and never will be however these types of gestures keep things right and it’s the least I can do considering the free reign I get on that side of the river.
Country sports “Life”
While talking with a colleague during the recent attempt to what we now call “Ban the countryside” by John Blair, my colleague made a very good point and one that stuck in my mind ever since. Many people are involved in many things, my brother for example is a vegan and rides motorcycles (quite a contrast) and other people like to wear lycra and ride bicycles and hold up traffic on a warm day, while others like to kick a ball round a field on a Saturday morning. These things are all “Hobbies” things can be picked up and dropped very easily. You can put the bicycle or motorcycle in the garage or play football when you feel like it and if any of these were banned tomorrow by a dim witted politician it really wouldn’t matter because you would find time to take up something else – However when one becomes involved in country sports it quite simply becomes ones life. The purchasing, rearing, training and life of a dog or dogs intertwines with your daily life and effects everything you do – You will spend many hours a week walking, feeding and training your dog. Depending on the time of year you will either be hunting, shooting, picking up or just exercising or training your dog(s) and your daily life, clothing, choice of vehicle and maybe even where you live could very well be dictated by your involvement in country sports – Maybe your annual holidays are visiting a game fair or country event or taking a sporting break abroad or in Scotland. His point and it was a very good point was that country sports is a life style, it is not something we decide to do on a Wednesday after work like the gym, its not something like cycling that we can not take part in of the weather isn’t great, it’s our life and not something a steered politician can remove as he pleases.
Ireland claimed the recent Spring Home International fly-fishing championships on Lough Melvin in Co Fermanagh with a resounding win on the team front and individual category.
Against a strong field of anglers from Wales, Scotland and England, the Irish team took full advantage of home ground to claim victory with an overall team catch of 36 trout, including seven fish for Kilbride angler Denis Goulding to win the coveted Brown Bowl.
The championship was held under the auspices of the Home International Fly-Fishing Association and hosted this year (for the first time) by Garrison and Lough Melvin Anglers’ Association. It is standard practice for the event to rotate each year and Ireland also took the honours in 2018 on Lough Mask.
Following two practice days, the 14-strong teams took to the water in a strong south-westerly gusting to 40kph in search of the sonaghan and gillaroo trout, unique to Lough Melvin. Mayfly patterns were the order of the day which accounted for over 100 fish caught, measured and released.
Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), the state agency responsible for the conservation and protection of freshwater fish and habitats, is issuing an alert for reports of any sightings of Pacific pink salmon.
At the recently held North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (NASCO) meeting, serious concerns were raised that pink salmon may spread to and establish in rivers throughout the wider Atlantic region. These concerns are raised after an explosive growth in their stocks was observed in northernmost Norwegian rivers in 2021.
In some rivers there, pink salmon now appear to outnumber co-existing native Atlantic salmon stocks despite having persisted at relatively low levels for many decades prior to this. Stocking programmes undertaken in rivers in the adjacent far northwest of Russia since the 1950s until 2001 are believed to be responsible for the initial spread of pink salmon to the region. Since 2017, the fish has been increasingly detected in unprecedented numbers in river systems and coastal areas of the North Atlantic, including Ireland, albeit at relatively low levels here to date.
Also known as humpback salmon, pink salmon are a migratory species of salmon, native to river systems in the northern Pacific Ocean and nearby regions of the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean. Although a single specimen was first recorded in Ireland in 1973, until 2017 individuals have been rarely encountered here. As pink salmon predominantly have a two-year lifecycle, there is potential for the species to reappear in Irish rivers again in 2023 and every second so called ‘odd’ year thereafter. However, they can also turn up in ‘even’ years and a single specimen was reported in the River Suir in 2018.
Date for your diary – The Irish Working Terrier Federation Show – 16th July 2022
Until Next time, Good hunting