Galway District – Brown Trout Daily Bag Limit

Inland Fisheries Ireland is seeking submissions in relation to a proposal to reduce the daily bag limit of four brown trout to two brown trout on the Rivers Clare, Abbert, Dalgan, Grange and Sinking in the Galway Fishery District. The current daily bag limit of four brown trout for these rivers is included in the Western Fisheries Region Conservation of Trout Bye-law no. 840, 2008 https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/17e7d-inland-fisheries-bye-laws-2008/. 

Having reviewed the existing Bye-law, IFI propose to put in place a separate new Bye-law for the rivers above. A copy of the existing and proposed new bye-law are available for public inspection at the offices of Inland Fisheries Ireland, Galway. The draft bye-law is also available to download below. 

Feedback from the Public consultation

Inland Fisheries Ireland undertook a Public Consultation to the draft Galway District - Brown Trout Daily Bag Limit - Rivers Clare, Abbert, Dalgan, Grange and Sinking byelaw commencing on 15th August 2023. The public consultation process consisted of a notice placed in the Western People newspaper, the Irish paper Seachtain , social media and this website. The consultation process ran for a 4-week period concluding on Thursday 14th Sept 2023.

The purpose of the public consultation was to seek submissions from the public in relation to an amendment to the current ‘Conservation of Trout bye-law No. 840, 2008’ which currently makes provision for a daily bag limit of four brown trout on the rivers listed within the bye-law. The amendment is to make provision for a new bye-law to reduce the daily bag limit of four brown trout to two brown trout for the Rivers Clare, Abbert, Dalgan, Grange and Sinking in the Galway Fishery District.

There were 176 submissions received in response to the public consultation by way of email and letter. These can be found in Appendix 1 of the Consultations document (PDF). In total 121 submissions were in favour, 50 objections with five submissions requesting the bye-law to go much further. This represents 69% fully support the bye-law, 28% against and 3% wish for the bye-law to provide for additional restrictions.

The draft bye-law along with the AA screening and the list of submissions received have been sent to DECC for consideration.