David Overy’s Personal Submission
Perhaps the author of this submission needs very little introduction to the Review Group Members. Nonetheless I feel it is important to outline my “pike” credentials to give weight to my proposals.
Pike angler for 25 years
Regular author for UK and Irish angling press
Co-author of “Ultimate Pike”. A definitive guide to pike angling
Involved with two pike angling documentaries with BBC and Discovery Channel
Regular speaker on UK angling circuit includingPike Anglers Club – Convention
Specialist Anglers Conservation Group – Annual Conference
Pike Anglers Alliance of Scotland
“Angling” at NEC
Recipient of PAC’s Annual Conservation Award 1995 (for promoting pike conservation)
Member of Irish Pike Society
Member of Kilbride Anglers (IFPAC affiliate)
Member of Pike Anglers Club (GB) (PAC)
THE PROBLEMS
Pike angling is regarded by many, both at home and abroad, as being in terminal decline. There are reasons for this, both real and imagined. However, perception is reality for many, especially potential pike angling tourists, and this review must address the issues if we are to see an improvement in the product for indigenous anglers and tourists alike. In my view these are the key ones :
Pike Culling
The issue that simply wont go away. The Irish State is seen by many as the single biggest perpetrator of pike slaughter. We all know the mantra, “It only happens on 13 wild brown trout fisheries” but this attitude engenders the “pike are vermin” mentality in many Fishery Boards, trout anglers, board employees and tourist anglers. This duplicity needs to end. Images of specimen pike in gill nets is not conducive to encouraging people to come here to fish – even to other waters! Pike culling needs to stop.
Ironically a solution was agreed as part of the Corrib System Development Plan (TAM). The WRFB agreed to:
Phase out the use of gill nets
Tag and release all 90cm + pike
Market the waters (Corrib, Mask, Carra) for pike angling in the off-shoulder period.
Predictably, once the storm died down, none of this effectively happened.
Pike Protection
Our pike bye laws are simply not policed. In 25 years I have been stopped only twice, both times on Lough Sheelin, by a fisheries officer. Time and again I witness visiting continental anglers slaughtering our pike stocks. How ‘Irish’ they must think our laws are! They can be arrested for killing pike but the authorities are doing the same thing officially. It’s a “do what I say, not what I do” attitude and it doesn’t work. We need to
Amend the bye laws to protect all pike over a certain length (say 70cm)
Take away the exclusion for specimen pike that allows 20lbers and 30lbers to be killed
Increase fines substantially for breaking these laws
Include a statutory requirement for all hire cruisers to display the bye laws and penalties
Cease the practice of allowing derogations (usually granted to trout clubs thus perpetuating the “vermin” culture) from bye laws once and for all
SCIENCE & EDUCATION
The CFB and Regional Boards need to develop a new scientific, research and educational programme that recognises pike as a valuable asset. The entire pike policy at present is based on the premis that pike are an introduced species that are unwanted where they compete with “indigenous” salmonids.
Sadly the CFB scientific community have not acknowledged the serious question marks over this contention. Recent empirical evidence suggest that the views held by IFT / CBF for generations are, at best, highly questionable.
We need a policy that recognises the reality. Pike are here and here to stay. They are a much sought after quarry for both local and visiting anglers and need to be treated with consistency. We must remove the charge of the Fisheries Boards destroying pike stocks.
There is precedent for this from the UK. Ireland’s purist view has ignored the “pay for your keep” message from the UK trout reservoirs that has seen top quality pike angling as a by-product of quality trout fishing. “Science” has prevented that here but this has to change. We need a scientific policy that:
Values pike in trout loughs
Educates trout anglers to their worth
Uses “income” from pike angling to enhance trout stocks
The fishery boards also need to embark on educational campaigns aimed at pike anglers. The Irish pike angling groups each have approved standards of tackle, methods, and behaviour aimed at conserving our pike stocks. These should be widely adopted and promoted.
REPRESENTATION FOR PIKE ANGLING
The regional fishery boards are dominated by Salmonid angling interests. We are all well aware that this is “democracy” with share-certificate purchase determining representation. This, put simply, is a farce ! Votes have been consistently gained by gerrymandering. This is totally against the spirit of the legislation if not actually against the law itself ! This ludicrous situation (on the Shannon Board, for example, we have one “coarse” member who is a prominent member of LSTPA) means that there is little or no real representation for pike anglers on fishery boards.
The result of this is one of mistrust by the anglers and a recourse to more public criticism. It must be recognised that, pike anglers have an unenviably unique position in Irish angling. We are the only group that has officialdom and other anglers actively destroying / wanting to destroy our sport. This breeds a hostile environment that is unhealthy for all.
We must all work together, in good faith, with mutual respect into the future. If agreements are reached on a new way forward because of this review then they must be seen to be implemented. The WRFB have steadfastly ignored their deal with IFPAC after TAM. If credibility is to be restored we must ensure that situation doesn’t recur.
MARKETING / PROMOTION
A major marketing and promotional drive needs to be embarked upon once a new pike policy is agreed. Virtually all of Europe’s recognised pike angling experts are railed against CFB and regional board policy. Many of them have issued written submissions to this review. One thing they all have in common is the commitment to helping Ireland regain its status as Europe’s foremost pike angling destination. To do this we need to recognise that Ireland offered something that nowhere else did. The chance to catch mammoth pike on big wild waters. This mantle has passed to Sweden, Finland and elsewhere. The notion abroad is that our waters are pillaged by gill nets and unchallenged pleasure anglers who fill their freezers with their catch.
To counter this image will require a sea-change in policy and will need the co-operation of key players in the pike-angling world. Most of the recognised experts (those that influence potential visitors most) regard Ireland as a dinosaur in pike conservation terms. If we want to see the return of the British, Dutch, Belgian, French and North American specimen hunters, then their key commentators need to endorse our policies.
On a personal note I have no vested interest in promoting angling tourism to Ireland. In fact, looked at dispassionately, it could be argued that the fewer people that are here to fish the better it is for those of us that are left ! This accusation, though bizarre, has been levelled at me before by individuals within the fisheries service. I am well aware that things are seldom so simple. I am also well aware that resources, however much we are interested in them, are of value only if they can be utilized and exploited. To do so they need firstly to be conserved.
I am not without influence from a pike angling perspective. Given a new deal for the species, which would recognise pike as a valuable element in all freshwater ecosystems, I am fully prepared to play my part in developing the tourism potential. I am also willing to assist in any education process and to work hand in hand with the authorities.
At the risk of ending on a sour note the corollary is also true. This review provides the best chance in a generation to fundamentally alter pike policy. Pike are of growing economic benefit and are recognised world-wide as a valuable sport fish. If Ireland persists in its blinkered attitude to the species, then I for one will continue to highlight it to the widest possible audience.
What Should Be Included In Your Submission (Deadline 10 January 2003)
Name of organisation, who you represent, your geographical base and your ability to influence (tourists, government bodies, journalists).
What your views are of the CFB’s current pike policies.
It is important to get across how you view Official Duplicity as the root cause of all of the pike problems here. Refer to the following as evidence of official duplicity.
- The destruction of pike stocks on “trout” waters internationally recognised for pike as well as trout.
- The non enforcement of pike protection bye-laws by the Regional Fisheries Boards*
- The loophole in these bye-laws that allows big pike be killed in an era where catch and release is the norm
- *evidenced by the lack of prosecutions when it is generally known that the Shannon & Erne systems are annually pillaged for pike by visiting pike anglers from the continent.
- The granting, with regularity, of derogations to these bye-laws, to angling clubs throughout Ireland.
- The current habits of your members regarding pike angling holidays. For example, “most of our members used to visit Ireland to fish for pike. Since the late 90’s our feedback is that the majority travel to Holland, Sweden or Canada. Polls we have conducted show the reasons behind this to have been the publicity surrounding gill netting”.
- Your organisations view that, given a new pike-friendly policy, your members would once again return to Ireland.
- What you view as “pike-friendly” policies. For example
- Complete cessation of gill netting of pike
New bye-laws to protect specimen pike from slaughter and their active policing
A promotion of pike angling on trout waters in the off-shoulder tourist season
Proper representation at Regional Board level of bike-angling interest - Your analysis of scientific opinion from around the world on pike that suggests the Irish authorities still cling to ideals that virtually all major tourist angling countries have abandoned as uneconomical, unsustainable and ecologically damaging.
- A final commentary that your organisation would be happy to work hand-in-hand with the Central and Regional Boards once they truly have a pike friendly framework for fisheries management in all Irish waters.
- A promise however, to continue to highlight the anti-pike stance taken by Official Ireland to its finest pike stocks and a commitment to shout from the highest hilltop if this once in a lifetime opportunity (the review) does not deliver meaningful advances in the treatment of Europe’s finest, and most sought after, sport fish.
