We bought a license for the Galway district. Having this license means you can fish for salmon in waters in the Galway district (which includes parts of Mayo) where the fishing rights are publicly owned. If you were fishing in private waters such as around Ashford Castle in Cong or in parts of the Clare River, fishing rights are private or club owned and then you also have to buy a ticket.
My dad and I only fished in public waters this year. But often public waters are not the best for catching salmon. Next season we may get a private ticket for some place.
The license entitles you to catch salmon and sea trout, but in Galway you can’t keep any sea trout. You have to release them. Until May 1st you can keep one salmon a day, after that you can keep up to three a day. But during the entire season you can only keep a total of ten salmon. The rest have to be released. So you have to think about how to use your license well.
If you catch a salmon you have to immediately insert a gill tag into the fishes gills and make a note in your log book how you caught it. If you forgot your pen and there’s no note in your log book, and the fishery officers come by (which they do on boats or jet skis) you can be fined or prosecuted. So always bring your pen.
The next salmon season starts on February 1st, so it’s just around the corner. Before it starts and before you can get a new license you have to post the old license with gill tags and log book back to your local fisheries office. That’s what we were doing here when that photo was taken.
An adult license for the Galway district costs 56 Euros. But a juvenile one is only a tenner. This year we didn’t catch any salmon, my dad lost two. But imagine if next season I catch a load of salmon, and the license was only 10 Euros!
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