Blue skies over Foxford again this morning and another scorcher of  a day ahead. In reality it is not salmon fishing weather so my recommendation would be to do something more productive for the day. I got a call yesterday afternoon from IFI to advise that the Cloongee fishery is now closed due to water temperature. They are concerned that Thermal stress may affect fish that are released. While there are no anglers on the fishery it would be a wonderful opportunity for IFI to do some well overdue maintenance on the banks, strim some paths, fix some styles and generally improve the fishery. The fact that there will be no anglers on the banks also raises the concern of Poaching, Poachers will have free reign. I’m sure that this has been thought about by The Minister and plans will hopefully be in place to increase Protection. Perhaps he will give IFI some more well needed staff, we no longer see a lot of them on our river banks. Not their fault, the guys and girls on the ground are brilliant but are overstretched trying to protect our fish. Instead of putting more boots on the ground and sorting out issues, our worthless Minister tries to fool Europe by implementing easy fix measures that look good on paper. There are so many things wrong, it is time that we as anglers asked some questions and Demand some answers. Europe is obviously the way to go and this is a debate we will have to have. A few letters to the Minister and to Europe outlining your concerns regarding our sport would be  a good start.