Decline of the inshore fishery off north Co. Wicklow.

Hi all,

I have updated research on the decline in fin fish biodiversity off the north Co. Wicklow coastline. Using information taken from the Irish Specimen Fish Committee reports, allied to first hand experience of the damage that mussel dredging and unregulated whelk fishing have contributed to this sorry saga. Please click on: http://www.anirishanglersworld.com/inde ... 010-08-24/, then through your club or local TD highlight what has happened here, environmental vandalism on a grand scale.

This fishery can be restored to the benefit of both local commercial fishermen and the sea anglers of Leinster and Ireland, if a proper restoration and management plan is put in place. Given the proximity of Dublin, the socio-economic benefit is potentially huge.

same thing was done on a beach you highlighted a month ago. two weeks ago on clone beach tons of baby mussels were washed in on the tide after been torn from the sea bed it was so bad lads trying to fish the beach ended up cutting there lines.as the weight was too great to pull it in. and so lies another ocean desert after been desimated by comercial fishing boats.i have witnessed trawlers not 500yrds off clone trawling back and forth from kilgorman at 5.30 in the mornings this is a joke i could have hit the boat with a stone.

hi ashley
i have some great memories of you and i fishing kilcoole beach and
the fishing was fantastic codling to 3 lbs and plenty of them, plaice that filled the frying pan ,and in the boats we used to get cod yes i said COD to 15 lbs ,thornbacks to 18 lb i have seen blond ray over 25 lb ,plaice to 3 lb, there used to be homelyn,painted and undulated ray and sadly now they are all gone ....


now i hardly fish kilcoole and when i do its some plugging and spinning . later on i will give it a go for tope and thats about it


boat fishing is dismel this year around greystones , no ray no tope
infact i haven't caught anything worth talking about ....


what can people do about this ashley

sad stuff

what can people do about this ashley?......... simple solution 12mile trawling ban and a five mile ban on longlining this will give these beds time for some regrowth and the sea bed a chance to recover from the constant pounding it has been recieving .some of the species that are now gone from this area will never recover . i won a competion in kilcoole in the seventys with a 2.5lb blacksole as a junior, it was a beautiful fish you think someone had painted it. have never seen another one caught.even move back up to dalkey there was always good cod and huge pollock i can remember fishing off colimore harbour and taken codling in doubles up to 3 lb and pollock to 5lb back in the late eightys, not that long ago. but greystones was always a great spot every comp fished along that strip greystones /kilcoole threw up such a variety of good fish its sad to think this aminity has been taken from us.and old saying springs to mind" you reap what you sow"and common sense should tell us all,we aint been sowing much, just all reaping.they tried to blame global warming on the shortage of cod stocks 3 yrs ago but you cant blame global warming on everything.our fishing industry has reached a point where they cant make a living with what they catch [so they tell us] around this country. so move the boundries out and let the reefs refill and the seabed recover and mother nature should do the rest

Hi Ger/Twinkle,

Yes the whole area between Bray and Wicklow Head was a sea angling paradise. Big tides, mussel banks, steep drop offs, rough ground, shallow even depth, and plenty of feed.

Having lived in Kilcoole for sixteen years and walked/fished the beach very regularly I can categorically say that trawlers did not sweep the bank. Mussel dredgers from Wexford came up every summer and did their work under licence from I assume the Department of Marine and Natural Resources, and it was these vessels that did the damage, breaking up the mussel beds and over time effecting the food chain.

I agree with the cods wallop about global warming, 16 species to specimen weight now down to four tells its own story, melting of the polar ice caps did not cause that vanishing trick.

COD, WHITING, POLLACK, COALFISH, HADDOCK, BASS, MULLET, SEA TROUT, PLAICE, DAB, FLOUNDER, LEMON SOLE, BLACK SOLE, TURBOT, DOGFISH, BULL HUSS, SMOOTH HOUND, TOPE, THORNBACK RAY, BLONDE RAY, HOMELYN RAY, CUCKOO RAY, RED GURNARD, GREY GURNARD, TUB GURNARD, JOHN DORY, MACKEREL, HERRING. 28 species that I have seen landed from these waters, 21 of which I had the pleasure of catching myself, only 7 of which you can still catch to a reasonable weight today.

The above is not nostalgia and it can be rectified if corrective action is taken now. I have seen sustainable commercial fishing and sea angling work side by side out of Greystones, the catch all mentality unfortunately adopted after joining the then EEC changed all that. Irish consumers of marine produce and sea anglers would be better served by a return to more sustainable traditional ways.

well what they dredged up at clone was all baby mussel. big clumps of less than a half inch long baby mussels.this was a ground just sort of getting back on its feet . afew flats starting to show and then bang, gone.how long do you think it takes a mussel bed to grow back ashley.or would it grow back naturally?

Is there are any lobbying for this, if so who is doing it, how do we get involved be it for the UK and for Ireland, I would be very interested in helping in any shape or form!!!

Yes Twinkle, they dredge up seed mussel and transport it down to Wexford harbour where they are transplanted to naturally grow on to marketable size. One respects the families involved, everyone has to make a living, but surely there is a better way of obtaining seed mussel. The economic benefit to the nation is definitely out weighed by the environmental damage done to the inshore fishing grounds off Co. Wicklow and north Wexford.

What beats me is that scientists employed by the state, environmental agencies such as Coastwatch, and politicians have to know what is going on. I just wish that I opened my mouth when I first became aware of the practice back in the nineteen eighties. Still better late then never.

i have to say i dident think of this as dredging iv been putting trawlers and dredgers in the same basket for this i have to apoligize. if there allowed dig up these beds. do they plant these beds in the first place or is it just every 2 to 3 yrs they dig the same spot?

same thing was done on a beach you highlighted a month ago. two weeks ago on clone beach tons of baby mussels were washed in on the tide after been torn from the sea bed it was so bad lads trying to fish the beach ended up cutting there lines.as the weight was too great to pull it in. and so lies another ocean desert after been desimated by comercial fishing boats.i have witnessed trawlers not 500yrds off clone trawling back and forth from kilgorman at 5.30 in the mornings this is a joke i could have hit the boat with a stone.

I was thinking of fishing there for the first time over the coming weeks... might change plans now!! Its terrible whats happening!

I would like to start a lobby group the core aims being:

(1). To highlight this practice and the long term damage it leaves behind.
(2). To research better ways of obtaining seed mussel for the industry, it is an important sector and there is no reason why recreational angling and commercial fishing cannot co-exist.
(3). To restore the fishery for the benefit of all interested parties.
(4). To put in place a sustainable management plan.

Twinkle, my memory is of them dredging off Bray Head in the 1980's. Since then annually they have been working steadily south. It is noticeable that they never seem to go back on themselves, so that tells its own story.

what sort of stock management plan is that. take all the seeds from one area.and grow them somewhere else. leaving barren distruction and dead sea areas all along our shores. i think the solution to this one is artifical reefs .we had a thread on this last year but it was deemed too exspenive but with a goverment backing this might be achivable the benifiets out way the revenue brought in by comercial fishing. there was a feasibility study conducted in 2001 and the results are here. http://www.marine.ie/NR/rdonlyres/13209 ... /0/r20.pdf it was conducted by the marine institute all over the world these have been a success. the amount of revenue they bring in is huge as well as the economy of the area its situated.divers, inshore angling tourism like we never had[to quote one american govenor]
this could be our answer and our saviour

You are quite correct, to keep an industry going by destroying a rich environment is ludicrous. As I said there has to be a better way to maintain those jobs and livelihoods other then to continually destroy the seabed.

Restoration through placing objects on the sea floor, as you state, on which mussel spat will fix has to be considered, the return could far out weigh the investment and a feasibility study should be undertaken. The potential benefit for recreational and commercial fishing based on how rich the inshore waters off Co. Wicklow were twenty years ago has to be huge.

you have to read the feasability report ashley. its most productive in a high unemployment area and easy access for twinkle and his boat dub lin bay sounds like it fits all the requirments between irelands eye and lambay lovely

There's a project currently in process to sink an old warship in Killala Bay as a fish nursery. I believe a group of diving clubs are behind it but where they're getting the funding from I'm not sure. The ship is reportedly up in Killybegs having any toxic materials removed and will be ready for towing to the bay in the near future. It should make a big difference, the bay has pretty well been scraped clean over the years.

if i remember rightly the cost of one ship was 1 millon euros .ithink for that sort of money you would get a large area set with concrete and tyres. and not just the size of the wreck. may be this could be done while there exploring dublin bay for oil? maybe try and get something back from these multinationals who seem to leave nothing but destruction behind them

They do the same thing off Rush in North Dublin the beach is full of small mussell shells they bring them to Carlingford Lough and grow them up there, Its great for them but its crap for us because there ripping up a perfectly good reef!!!

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/courts/skipper-of-intercepted-boat-faces-charges-2319482.html

Maybe something is starting??????

As far as lobby groups go we have quite an effective organisation up here in Northern Ireland.It is called Marine Conservation Northern Ireland http://www.marineconservationnorthernir ... .uk/?cat=1
This group has formed recently to give rsa's (recreational sea anglers) a stakehold in the future of inshore and off shore sea's around N.I.
It comprises of a varied group from people from the I.F.S.A. to politicians ,tackle dealers to angling journalists and anglers who are passionate about helping bring an end to the utter destruction of our sea beds and fish holding reefs etc.