EAMON Gilmore may not have expected his effigy to be torched on bridges as he approached his twilight days in office. Fortunately for the Minister of State for the Marine and Democratic Left TD, salmon is not a burning issue in his own constituency - Dun Laoghaire.
Or is it? With an estimated 25,000 rod anglers dotted around the country, including Dublin, he has taken on an influential and largely middle class lobby in his attempts to forge the first management policy in decades for the prized wild fish.
That policy, which aims to introduce conservation measures acceptable to competing interests, is now under the microscope as the draft net fishery opens on estuaries, and the driftnet season looms. Hence the effigy protests by some disgruntled netsmen on the river Slaney at Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, over the past month.
Many would have said that Mr Gilmore was mad when he commissioned a review of salmon management in October, 1995. Few issues arouse more passion than the bradan, which is why previous attempts to find a consensus have failed miserably and at some political cost.
However, as commercial fishermen continue to agitate over mismanagement of the Common Fisheries Policy in Irish waters, failure to agree a domestic policy on an invaluable native stock has often been highlighted by scientists as a fundamental weakness in any diplomatic effort to improve the situation at EU level.
The salmon review was carried out by Professor Noel Wilkins, associate professor of zoology at University College, Galway, as chairman of a task force appointed by the Minister. In one of the most democratic efforts in living memory to canvass opinion within the sector, some 232 written submissions were considered, and oral submissions taken at six centres throughout the State.
The task force also met managers of the seven regional fisheries boards and staff of the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (NASCO) in Edinburgh, and discussed management regimes in Canada and Iceland.
The report, published last September, recommended legalisation of mono filament net, on the basis that any ban would be unenforceable.
It also recommended a change and shortening of the commercial catch season; a reduction in the 12 mile limit on seafishing salmon to six miles; a tagging and quota system; new licensing arrangements for anglers; a radical improvement in gathering catch statistics and measurement of spawning escapement on all State rivers; further research on seal predation; reconstitution of fisheries boards to reflect wider community interest; and training to improve the quality and marketing of wild Irish salmon.
The review identified 40 ways of killing a salmon in sea and freshwater, including pollution. Driftnetting was not the only, and might not even be the main, cause of a perceived decline in salmon, it said.
Though international opinion was increasingly hostile to non recreational salmon fishing, it believed that abolishing one sector in favour of another would be "intrinsically divisive."
Mr Gilmore pledged to implement the recommended measures, and began with restricting driftnetting at sea for salmon this year to the months of June and July only, and reducing the number of days from five to four a week.
Much will depend on what happens during this first new season. But the driftnet sector appears to have accepted the restrictions as a tradeoff for legalising monofilament - an invisible nylon mesh which gives the fish little chance to survive.
Anglers also appear to be ad opting a "wait and see" policy. Mr Dan Joy, chairman of the Federation of Irish Salmon and Sea Trout Anglers (FISSTA), was initially unhappy that his group was not adequately represented on the task force.
Mr Joy's "worst case scenario" is that the tagging and quota systems will not be operating before a change in government, while monofilament will have been legalised.
The one unhappy sector is the draftnet fishery, particularly in such areas as the Slaney river in Wexford and the Boyne estuary at Drogheda, Co Louth.
Ms Carmel Lynn, chair of the new Inshore Traditional Net Fishermen's Association and member of the Eastern Regional Fisheries Board, says that local management initiatives have not been adequately recognised by the Minister of State.
"We have lost 53 per cent of our season, which is too much for a sector which is the underdog," she says. "Most draft netters catch a small quantity of salmon to buy a few schoolbooks for the kids.
She believes that Mr Gilmore has "sided with the rod anglers", which is "crazy for a socialist politician," in her view. But not so crazy, perhaps, come the election.
