A bright sunny morning in Foxford, not ideal for salmon angling. Water temperatures have again risen to over 18 degrees and I had a call from IFI yesterday to advise that they are considering closing the state fisheries and will do so if the water temp reaches 20 degrees. We also got a text from East Mayo Angler yesterday evening to tell us not to issue any permits for today as they are also considering closing. I don’t disagree with looking after fish stocks but this Protocol used by IFI is a very blunt Instrument and in my humble opinion needs refining. Its not that the ridge pool is stuffed with salmon in danger of dying from a lack of oxygen. What happened in previous years when there were thousands of salmon in the pool ? They have now decided that this is global warming, fish stocks are in decline and this is the way to deal with it. No my friends, this is people in offices ticking boxes and making sure everything is politically correct so there’s no bad press for the Minister. There’s a lot more sensible stuff that should be done and is Not been done to help fish stocks. Anyway, who am I to disagree with the Minister and his experts in IFI.

For today, the early part of the day will be difficult because of the sunshine. Prawn fishing in some of the deeper parts of the river will be the best method.  Later today we will see some cloud cover which will help and bubble and fly will be worth a try. From tomorrow we should see a change in weather and hopefully we will have a bit of rain and fresh water in the system.