Angler warns of potential rod war

A LEADING angling figure, who recently spent four days in prison for refusing to pay a fine, has warned of another ‘rod war’ by angry anglers.

Richard Behal, 69, from Killarney, said there was great resentment among salmon anglers who felt they had been betrayed by successive fishery ministers.

“Anglers are now worse off than in the days of drift netting, which has been banned,” he claimed.

“Irish salmon anglers are becoming an endangered species as lease and licence costs are leaping up.

“Ordinary anglers will end up being priced out of their traditional waters and denied their rights to fish.

“The financial institutions and chequebook anglers will take over.”

Mr Behal endured jail rather than pay a €65 fine for failing to return his unused angling tags and logbook to the South Western Regional Fisheries Board.

The veteran campaigner said he opted to serve time in Cork Prison as a protest against what he claimed were years of broken promises by ministers.

Such promises, he insisted, included a guarantee that there would be no prosecutions against anglers until a review of licence tags and logbooks had been carried out.

“Something that’s really annoying people is that the new draft-netting regulations have failed to benefit either recreational, or tourist, angling,” he said.

Under the new restrictions, he said, anglers were prepared to accept restrictions and make sacrifices in the hope of there being a return to abundant salmon angling.

However, the reality now was that the point of slaughter had moved from the drift nets at sea to draft netting in the estuaries where the majority of fish were being taken, as was being evidenced on the Feale in north Kerry.

Mr Behal, who was on the 14-member committee which organised the anglers’ rod war in 1989-’91, said we could soon see a similar confrontation.

The rod war was against a proposal to introduce a licensing system.