Poachers or Anglers?
What is a Poacher?
So there has been an awful lot of talk about two anglers from Limerick (not certain) who traveled to the kingdom and fished one of the world famous beaches on the Dingle Peninsula. Unfortunately for them they decided to keep two bass for the table. This is actually at the moment against European laws and with the ever efficient Inland Fishery Board Officers on the ground they have to be congratulated for this. So the Bass and the gear were seized.
Here is the link down below to the Facebook post and if you have time and patience please read some of the comments all two hundred of them.
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| Bass Seizure, Dingle Peninsula, Inland Fishery Board |
For anybody that is not aware there is strict laws protecting Bass, if you are caught in close season which has changed more times than I can remember this is what will happen. The fishery officers will approach you and they have a strict procedure to follow so that they can prove you have killed a Bass. There will always be two of them, they will proceed to take your gear and you will be hit with an on the spot fine of 190 euro.
They will then seize your gear and you will only receive it back when you pay the fine. If you refuse to pay then your gear is taken and court proceedings will follow. All this is quite new and to be honest its an anglers own individual opinion if its right or wrong.
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| Ian Benning, Bass Dingle Peninsula, Lure, December 2018 |
The Facebook post gathered an awful lot of attention, with over two hundred direct comments, 70 shares and maybe close to one thousand indirect comments then i'm afraid there is some questions to be answered. This is my opinion on the matter, the reason anglers are so up in arms about the IFI is the simple fact they do absolutely nothing with substance to protect our stocks, not just of Bass but all species of fish here in Ireland.
At the moment the anglers are the stakeholders of the IFI along with other parties but I would ask anybody to tell me another state organization, where the stakeholders, hold the agency up to such disregard. Throughout the whole year, if the Inland Fishery Board had 5 prosecutions of substance across the whole country, they would be doing well.
These two bass seized is not what should be included in the end of year report. Yes it needs to be done but "oh my god" there is so much more to be done. The real problem with the IFI is that there is a bunch of academics trying to enforce laws, unfortunately its a different breed of individual that enforces laws.
While the estuaries of the Laune, Maine and Feale get raped year after year and people blame climate change for the fall of Salmon in our rivers, why don't the officers that seized these bass from my fellow anglers, go away and go down any of the above named estuaries and do a proper job.