17/1/14 Opening day

17/1/14 Great to be back on the No Spin No Fly’s zone, on this opening day of the 2014 season and I will start by wishing you all a great 2014 in all departments. Now down today’s facts, there were 12 boats manipulating and all failed miserably in their duties in the fresh wild Atlantic Salmon department, but it was good to see a good few Kelts caught,12 in total. Now to quote of the day, a renowned shooter said in his opinion we anglers were a bunch of Chicken eggs, all I can say is some Chicken some neck and that’s my quote, or is it?      

3/1/14 Wild

3/1/14 now that's wild

the big wave

14/1/14

News and Events January 2014

We would remind members that the Waterville Fisheries

Development Group AGM will be held this coming Thursday

16th January 2014 at 8.00pm in the Waterville Inn. All are

invited to attend

Waterville Hatchery full of my Noble Wild Salmon Eggs

Facts Courtesy of www.loughcurrane.com

This last month has seen the catch up of brood stock for the hatchery ready
for stripping for next year's stock! On the 11th of December a small team of

A seatrout digging a redd outside the hatchery

us caught 14 hen fish and 7 cocks. There were, this year, a larger number of

MSW salmon caught up, including some fine hen fish in the teens of pounds!
These fine fish are producing large amounts of eggs for the hatchery as they
fall ripe. Tom O'Shea and his father Donal managed to strip two of these hen
fish on the 22nd December and they yielded 7,500 eggs! These are already in
the trays - a good start!

5/12/13 Breaking News from the Waterville Fishery

News and Events December 2013

This year's parr are graded .......

In addition to the 13,500 salmon fry released into the upper catchment
a further 2,500 have now been fin clipped and successfully released
downstream of the hatchery today. We have another 5,000 well grown
parr, which will now be released in the New Year! We will be occupied until then
catching up salmon for next year's program! This means that Tom O'Shea,
on behalf of Waterville Fisheries Development Group has produced 21,000
fish from the hatchery this year, a massive increase from the same number

.....fin clipped.......

of broodstock salmon caught up last year! A total of 15 hen fish and 9 cock
fish, caught up on the Cummeragh River last December have produced this
amazing result.A marvellous effort! Thanks to Tom and all the volunteers
and especially to Frank, Jimmy, John and James on the RSS team 

Committee Chairman Tadhg O'Sullivan and our Secretary Kevin O'Sullivan 
attended the Galway Fly Fair encountered a good deal of interest in the
work we do here, in particular our Court Action for Judicial revue against the 

...and released back into the Cummeragh by Jimmy O'Sullivan!!

Government's granting of a new licence to extend the Salmon Farm at Deenish
Island. A good number of  donations were received for this expensive court 
action and we would ask again here for all the financial help you can give to

the Fund. Please visit the Donation  page on this site to make your contribution!

29/11/13 Bob hits 60

Phil, Bob, Ann

29/11/13 Breaking news, renowned Waterville Gillie Mr. Bob Priestly had a big surprise when he headed for the Lobster Bar for his Friday evening pint, and for good reason, He was going down for quiet pint to celebrate his 60th birthday and what a shock he got when he saw his good Sister and Brother , Ann and Phil, who came with their families, from the UK to celebrate Bob’s great day, and of course all his friends, who I might add came from all over Ireland for his party, and not forgetting the good people of Waterville, and I can tell you there was a cracking party laid on with good local entertainment in the singing department as you will see on You Tube in the next few days. So on Bob’s behalf I would like to thank the Landlady of the Lobster Bar Mrs Sheila O’Carroll and all her Bar Staff for laying on a cracking party.          

The best of Mates

23/11/13 News Flash, from Salmon Watch Ireland

(24 November 2013) - Salmon Watch Ireland welcomes the decision of the European Commission to re-open its file on complaints submitted to it in 2009 about the impact of salmon farm generated sea lice on migrating juvenile wild salmon.  The complaints had been lodged by Salmon Watch Ireland (‘SWIRL’) and Friends of the Irish Environment (‘FIE’).  The re-opening of the file has resulted from FIE drawing the attention of the Commission to the fact that an analysis of data about the impact of sea lice on juvenile wild salmons by the Marine Institute has been strongly contested by an eminent group of international scientists.
In addition to the re-opening of the Commission file, the Irish Ombudsman is conducting an inquiry into allegations that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine withheld from the Commission’s investigation of the SWIRL/FIE complaints a report from Inland Fisheries Ireland which gave a very different picture about the impact of sea lice and Irish efforts to control it, than that put forward by the Department;  the Department has responsibility for both the development and the regulation of salmon farming.  The Ombudsman has recently extended his investigation to include the actions of the Department of Foreign Affairs in the matter.
The Commission has re-opened its file on the sea lice issue as a result of its’ attention being drawn to a paper in the Journal of Fish Diseases in August 2013 which seriously questioned the analysis of sea lice data by a number of scientists from the Marine Institute (‘MI’) published in the same journal earlier in 2013.  The Marine Institute analysis (in a version published in papers in 2011) was relied on by Bord Iascaigh Mhara in the compilation of its’ Environmental Impact Statement for the Galway Bay super-salmon-farm project.  The authors of the August 2013 paper, led by Professor M Krkosek of the University of Toronto, concluded that were ‘fundamental methodological errors’ in the MI analysis and that rather than sea-lice having a 1% impact on survival rates of salmon at sea, the true rate is of the order of 34%.
Despite undertakings to do so, the MI have to date failed to respond to the Krkosek paper’s criticisms.
Commenting on these developments, the chair of the board of Salmon Watch Ireland, Niall Greene, said:  ‘The decision of the EU Commission to reopen its file on the 2009 complaints of Salmon Watch Ireland and Friends of the Irish Environment, about the impact of salmon farm generated concentrations of sea lice on wild salmon, is a very significant development.  Taken together with the Irish Ombudsman’s investigation into allegations that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine failed to transmit critical information relevant to the Commission’s investigations of the complaints, this means that the behaviour of the Department, of BIM and of the Marine Institute on salmon farming issues is once again now under close scrutiny’ .

6/11/13

News and Events October 2013
News from the hatchery!
13,500 fry have now been released into the upper catchment!
Tom O'Shea has produced 20,000 fish from the hatchery this year,
a massive increase from the same number of broodstock salmon.
A total of 15 hen fish and 9 cock fish, caught up on the Cummeragh
River last December have produced this amazing result. This week the fish
were graded for size and the smaller fry released. The grown on parr are to
be finclipped towards the end of November and a proportion released into
the system. As reported earlier, 5 fin clipped grilse were caught this last
season from the stocking in 2011, a very good result from the 4500 total
of fish stocked.

The Waterville Fisheries will be represented this coming weekend at the
Fly Fair in Galway! Tadhg O'Sullivan, chairman of our local steering committee
and Secretary, Kevin O'Sullivan will represent us a t this poular fair and hopefully
generate new business for the Wateville Community!