REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMISSIONERS FOR IRISH FISHERIES, FOR 1 8 6 7. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty DUBLIN: PRINTED BY ALEXANDER THOM, 87 & 88, ABBEY-STREET, for her majesty’s STATIONERY OFFICE., 1868 [ Price 6tZ. | CONTENTS. Page. REPORT, 3 24 APPENDIX, 1 REPORT. TO HIS EXCELLENCY JAMES MARQUIS OF ABERCORN, K.G., LORD LIEUTENANT-GENERAL AND GENERAL GOVERNOR OF IRELAND. May it please your Excellency, We have the honour to submit to your Excellency, the Fifth Annual Report of this Commission, arranged under the following heads:— 1. The General State of the Fisheries during the year, their Prospects, Funds, &c. 2. Fixed Engines in tidal waters. 3. Stone Weirs and Free Gaps. 4. Fish Passes or Ladders. 5. Mouths of Rivers and Estuaries. 6. By-Laws. 7. Close Seasons. 8. Local Management. 9. Legislation suggested. 1. The General State of the Fisheries during the year, their Prospects, Funds, fyc. Though it must be admitted that the capture of fish in Ireland during the last year has been below the average, (as appears both from the railway returns and the Clerks’ report as given in the Appendices,) we think that the deficiency is not to be considered as indicative of a decline in either the produce or value of the Salmon fisheries, but may be accounted for by the very exceptional state of the weather and rivers during the fishing season. This opinion, adopted from our own experience and observation, has been confirmed by the answers to our usual inquiries addressed at the end of this year, not only to the Clerks of the districts, but to the Conservators individually. During the early and, indeed, until a very advanced period of the last season, the weather was, as will be recollected, unusually cold and harsh—a state of things which is generally considered to be prejudicial to fish entering the rivers ; while in the spring of the year the heavy floods preventing nets from being used in the lower part of the tidal waters greatly facilitated the escape of the first run salmon to the upper waters, and at the same time were prejudicial to the rod-fishing; and though the capture by rods in the upper part of some of the rivers of fish during the early season, heavier than usual, would lead to the conclusion that several then got up, we have no reason to think that the number which at that time ascended the rivers was, comparatively speaking, large. With weather propitious to the ascent of the fish, the heavy rains were succeeded by a long-continued drought, which reduced the majority of the rivers much below the summer level for nearly the entire succeeding part of the fishing season. During this time we have been informed that at the mouths of some of the rivers where nets were not used fish were seen at times in shoals sporting about; but the state of water in the rivers was such that they were unable to get up at all, and the fish became so much deteriorated by being kept out that the character of even fresh run fish, taken in the late part of the rod season, was quite different from that of the fish usually frequenting the rivers. In one place, an experienced fisherman, to account for the disappearance of the fish after they had been so seen at the mouth of the river, suggested that in consequence of A 2 4 REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMISSIONERS their inability to get up their own river (which was a tributary) they had, after a time, passed it and gone to try their success in getting up the principal stream. We mention this to show that so exceptional was the state of the rivers last season that even the humbler classes of fishermen resorted to new theories to account for the deficiency of them. Another reason for the paucity of fish taken during the last fishing season—one, too, of great importance upon a subject to which we have frequently adverted, viz., the over net fishing at the mouths of salmon rivers—may, perhaps, be found in the well- remembered drought of the season of 1864—the driest season which had been since the year 1826 ; for there is no doubt that by the excessive fishing at the mouths of rivers for the very large part of that season during which the fish were unable at all to get up the rivers, an unusually large quantity of the breeding fish whose spawn might be expected to stock the rivers last year and this was destroyed. Whilst, however, the quantity of fish observed in the rivers during the season was not large, we are enabled to state that after, and towards the close of, the fishing season, the heavy water in the rivers which continued for some time previous to the general spawning months, permitted the access of the fish to the upper waters, and during the months of November and December, a number much larger than is usual in these months ascended the rivers ; and in the after season the rivers were so abundantly supplied with breeding fish that we are hopeful that the dry season of last year will not produce any permanent injury to the fisheries, and we notice with pleasure that during the part of this season which has passed, if the fish in the Dublin market have not been more numerous than usual, the proportion of large fish to be seen is much greater, and the fact of many of them having come from Limerick, is strongly corroborative of the statement of the fisherman mentioned in our last report, that the size of fish taken above the tidal waters of the Shannon is increasing. Since writing the above, we have received from the Clerk of the Conservators of the Limerick district, his report to the Board for the past season, and we are glad to avail ourselves of the opportunity of referring to that report, which as one coming from a gentleman of long experience in the largest and most important district in Ireland, is entitled to the greatest attention, particularly when grounded, as it is, upon apparently very great personal observation, and the reports of his water-bailiffs in different parts of the district. His remarks upon the last season coincide in so many respects with what we have above submitted to vour Excellency, that we think it is right to give them in his own words. He says :— “ Our knowledge of the habits of the salmon, and of the influences that affect or govern their migration, is still too limited to enable us to account satisfactorily for the disappointment of those sanguine, and by no means unreasonable, expectations which were very generally indulged at the commencement of the open season. Several years of the most careful protection, and a succession of universally favourable spawning seasons, were sufficient to justify predictions very different from those which it was found at the close of the season had been verified.” “My experience induces me to ascribe the unproductiveness of the past season chiefly, if not altogether, to the prevalence during the spring and early part of the summer of a degree of cold not often experienced at such periods. The winter of 18G6-7 was remarkable for severe and long-continued frost, which, setting in imme­ diately after a heavy fall of snow, so hardened the latter as to keep it for some months from melting. After a short intermission we were again visited with severe frost during portions of the months of February and March, and I find, from a record kept by one of the water-bailiffs, that from the 27th February to 20th April, a period of more than seven weeks, a very harsh easterly wind was blowing. This wind is notoriously unfavourable to the capture of salmon in this district, either by net or rod, and has always been known to retard the approach of such fish to the rivers. The month of May, too, was remarkably uncongenial, from the frequent recurrence of heavy showers of sleet and hail, and even throughout the month of Juno a very sensible degree of cold was occasionally experienced ; and I think it will always be found most when the water is unusually cold, as from the causes enumerated it certainly was during the spring and early in the summer of last year, the supply of the salmon during the open season will be diminished, as the upward migration of the fish will be delayed beyond the usual period.” “The fact which I am happy to be able to record—that the supply of breeding fish during the past spawning season was unprecedentedly large—must be regarded as strong evidence in favour of this theory. Had not a large upward migration of salmon taken place last autumn, the stock of spawning fish, judging from the supply during the open season, must have proved seriously deficient. As, however, the breeding stock was more than ordinarily abundant, and as it certainly was not collected during the open season, it is clear that a larger run of salmon must have taken place at a later period. As the only cause to which this late migration can reasonably be attributed, is of an exceptional character, we are justified in regarding the comparative unproduc­ tiveness of the past fishing season as exceptional also, and in indulging expectations of a sanguine character respecting the future.” ° Speaking of the spawning season, he says :— “The only complaints which I received were, that in some places the breeding stock was too large, and that the beds were turned up several times in succession by different shoals of fish.