190 SALMON FISHING 



spawning time has been stopped, and the fishery is 

 rapidly improving. A hundred salmon and from 

 600 to 780 sea-trout should be caught. The average 

 weight of the salmon is between 9 Ibs. and 10 Ibs.; 

 that of the sea-trout, 3 Ibs. A hatchery is to be 

 established on the river. The Board of Agriculture 

 are assisting. The purpose is to benefit the fishing 

 villages that border the Killary Harbour for many 

 miles." 



The SCREEB and the FURNACE, in County Galway, 

 are severely beset by professional fishermen. Mr. 

 Howard Bligh St. George, Clonsilla Lodge, writes : 



" Salmon and sea-trout are alarmingly decreasing 

 off the Galway and Connemara coast. It is quite 

 clear that the cause is netting in the open sea and 

 the estuaries. Under the sanction and by the 

 assistance of the Department of Agriculture and 

 Technical Instruction for Ireland, residents along the 

 coast are encouraged to acquire nets upon very easy 

 terms, and where there was one net five years ago 

 there are twenty nets now. Those chiefly used are 

 trammel nets and drift nets, and they are at work by 

 day and night along the seaboard and within the 

 estuaries. The area within which it is legal to use 

 trammel nets in certain parts of certain estuaries 

 along the Connemara coast was last year restricted 

 by byelaws ; but the boundaries are insufficient, and 

 net -fishing is legalised within limits that cannot 

 fail to be destructive to the inland fisheries. More- 

 over, there is no provision for the enforcement of 

 these byelaws by the Board of Agriculture, who 



