Coarse Fishing
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Coarse Fishing in Ireland
The Central Fisheries Board recently established a Coarse Fish Policy Review Group, which will be chaired by Dr Joe Caffrey, senior research officer with the CFB. Dr Caffrey says one of the issues discussed in this review will be the killing of fish.
“There is no legislation governing the removal of coarse fish from our waters. We have never had a tradition of removing fish, but Eastern European countries do eat these fish. What we would like would be a total catch and release policy.”
This issue is starting to affect tourism, as some visiting anglers are very turned off by the coarse fish removal. “The English in particular are the biggest group of coarse anglers who come to Ireland, and anglers don’t like seeing fish being taken from the waters. Without question it is damaging our tourism industry.”