Controversial Salmon Net in Donegal

 I received an email on Friday night that will forever remain anonymous. The email contained very interesting allegations and alleged that a draft net license was granted to a brother of two IFI officers. Now I have done some research and it seems to be credible. My understanding is that you can only be granted a license to net salmon if the license was within your own family. The problem here is that if true then would there not be a conflict of interest? How is a brother going to police his brother? Should staff of the state body mandated to conserve Salmon have a family member netting salmon? The application process here needs to be looked at. The whole situation needs attention. If this is true which I am not certain it is then in my opinion we have a corrupt organisation called the IFI. I have spent the last few weeks trying to piece together my own problem down here in Kerry. A few years back the draft netters were looking for an extension to the netting season. They were granted an extension because the IFI deemed the run of Salmon on the Maine to be late but in that year the fish counter counted 1400 spring salmon on the fish counter. Very little Salmon were counted late in the year on the fish counter. The c&r figures last year are absolutely baffling. I am in the process of writing up a survey that I want anglers from the Laune and the Maine to do it. It will give us further information on these C&R figures. I have applied by way of an assessment of information on the environment (AIE) to the IFI on getting the real data on the fish counter. I have been told that only one person has this in the Marine Institute but that person is unavailable at the moment. All this is very tiring but I am hoping that somebody can answer some very simple questions. In my mind I think that we as citizens of Ireland have the right to at least proper data regarding our rivers. It shouldn't take years to get this. When i get an email like this, I personally don't want to believe it but why then are nets still operating in Castlemaine when we know that the data isn't accurate? The conservation limit has strict procedures attached to it, when we question the data all we get is well the salmon fry are looking good in the Maine but that is only one part of the make up of the conservation limit. I spoke with a friend on the phone today and we chatted about why we all get so messed up about salmon. What is it about this fish that we all obsess over? I don't really know the answer but I wont stop writing about it. 

Gweebarra River, Donegal