Two Irish anglers, Martin McKenny from the River Dee and Brian McShane from the Castletown River, were the top sea trout samplers for the Celtic Sea Trout Project in 2011. Both anglers, plus several other Irish winners, will be presented with their valuable tackle voucher prizes by Minister Fergus O’Dowd at an Inland Fisheries Ireland’ Fisheries Awareness Week’ event on May 20th, in the Ardboyne Hotel, Navan, Co. Meath.

Martin, who regularly fishes the Dee, provided the most sets of sea trout scales from fish he caught on rod-and line in his favourite river. In the runners-up spot was Brian McShane who also provided a large numbers of sets of scales from the beautiful Castletown River. Virtually all fish were returned alive after the small sample of scales had been taken.

Congratulating all the Irish winners, Minister O Dowd stated ‘I commend these anglers and their efforts in supporting the Celtic Sea Trout Project. The success of the project is assured with such cooperation from the winning anglers and all participating anglers who have contributed so much to the project.’

Since 2010 scales have been collected by anglers from sea trout from priority rivers which flow into the Irish and Celtic Seas in Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England and the Isle of Man. The scales, which are like life history diaries, will provide scientists working on the Celtic Sea Trout Project with essential information on sea trout populations in the rivers sampled including their age, growth and how many times they have spawned.  The project, which is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the Ireland Wales Territorial Co-operation Programme 2007-2013 (INTERREG 4A), aims to increase our understanding of sea trout, in order to manage them better and increase their contribution to local economies and the quality of life. Full details about the project on www.celticseatrout.com

Full list of winners in Ireland
Congratulations to the following anglers who contributed the most scale samples from sea trout in 2011

Overall winner (covering anglers from Ireland, Wales Scotland, England/Isle of Man)
Martin McKenny from the River Dee, Ireland

Regional winners (1 of 4 Regions)
Brian McShane of the Castletown in Ireland

The following anglers names were drawn at random and have each won £100 (or equivalent value in €) in tackle vouchers (4 winners from 10 draws are from Ireland)
Andy Kelly of the Slaney, Ireland
Martin McCarthy of the Argideen, Ireland
Jimmy Condra of the Boyne, Ireland
John Harmon of the Boyne, Ireland.

Many thanks to all contributors and the CSTP team hope all anglers will continue to support the project throughout 2012.

…Ends…

Media Enquiries

Suzanne Campion
Head of Business Development
Inland Fisheries Ireland
Anglesea Street,
Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.
Tel: 052 6180055 Fax: 052 6123971;
Email: suzanne.campion@fisheriesireland.ie Website: www.fisheriesireland.ie

Notes to Editor

The sea trout, which is the migratory form of the brown trout, migrates to sea to feed where it grows rapidly before returning to freshwater to spawn. It is very popular target of rod anglers in the rivers and coastal waters around the Irish Sea. The Celtic Sea Trout Project is a ground-breaking, €2 million, multi-agency partnership investigation into the sea trout stocks and fisheries of the rivers entering the Irish Sea which commenced in 2010. The project is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Ireland Wales Programme (INTERREG 4A). Inland Fisheries Ireland and University College Cork are the main project partners in Ireland. The Celtic Sea Trout Programme aims are to understand and describe sea trout stocks in the Irish Sea in order to enhance their fisheries, and strengthen their contributions to quality of life, to rural economies and to national biodiversity, and to translate new knowledge gleaned from the project into fishery and conservation benefits for countries bordering the Irish Sea.  The marine ecology of sea trout will be a primary focus of this study.
Ten rivers in Ireland have been chosen as priority rivers for intensive study of their sea trout populations and anglers have been asked to provide samples of scales from sea trout they catch. The full list of rivers is:
The Shimna, Newcastle, Co. Down.
The Castletown River, Dundalk, Co. Louth
The River Dee, Annagasson, Co. Louth
The River Boyne, Drogheda, Co. Louth
The River Dargle, Bray, Co. Wicklow
The River Slaney, Wexford
The Colligan River, Dungarvan, Co. Waterford
The River Bandon, Bandon, Co. Cork.
The Argideen, Timoleague, Co. Cork
Lough Currane, Waterville, Co. Kerry.

Inland Fisheries Ireland is a statutory body operating under the aegis of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and was established under the Fisheries Act on 1st July 2010. Its principal function is the protection and conservation of the inland fisheries resource. IFI will promote, support, facilitate and advise the Minister on, the conservation, protection, management, development and improvement of inland fisheries, including sea angling and develop and advise the Minister on policy and national strategies relating to inland fisheries and sea angling.

Introduction

The Celtic Sea Trout Project (CSTP) is a European Union, Interreg IVA-funded, Ireland-Wales collaborative project on the status, distribution, genetics and ecology of sea trout around the Irish Sea. This note briefly outlines progress in 2011 for the many helpers and participants in angling clubs, river trusts and other organisations. More detailed technical accounts will be available in due course.

Sampling

The CSTP is reliant upon effective field sampling to collect data and material such as scales from fish for the scientific analysis. For example, the genetics and microchemistry analysis, that will tell us about the mixing and distribution of stocks, requires a baseline of measurements to be made in all the principal rivers around the Irish Sea which are likely to contribute to sea trout stocks. River sampling of juvenile
trout for the genetics was the focus of the CSTP scientific team’s work in 2010 and was completed in 2011, using a large scale electro-fishing programme, taking samples from around 80 rivers.

Sampling in the sea

Marine sampling of sea trout is a key part of the project because it has not been done before in the Britain and Ireland. We want to know, amongst other things, where they go, what they feed on and how fast they grow. This is a challenging task but the CSTP team has made good progress. We have had to develop new methods for trawl sampling and have used them successfully in surveys from Dublin to the Solway coast, via the Isle of Man. Shore sampling along the coasts of Wales, England and Scotland has proved more difficult; but the collections are still sparse and the marine sampling, including trawl sampling off Cardigan Bay and South Wales, will be intensified in 2012. Shore sampling in Ireland has yielded good results and this programme will be expanded in 2012.

Sampling in rivers

A major part of the sampling programme is the collection of scales for analysis of life histories, and growth rates. For this purpose we need to know which rivers they came from and, apart from fish traps of which there are only three across the whole CSTP area (Tawe, Dee and Lune), the sampling of adults in rivers has to be done by angling. This part of the sampling programme has required extensive communication with angler groups and distribution of thousands of sampling kits and scale envelopes. Several talks on the CSTP were given during the winters of 2008/9, 2009/10 and 2010/11 to clubs and associations across Wales, Ireland, Scotland and England. We aim to collect scales from at least 300 adult sea trout from each of the selected rivers over the project. 2
The scale sampling to date has had mixed fortunes, bearing in mind the target of 300 (Fig 1). The participation has been very good with over 1,600 anglers sending in 3974 sets, of which 2,322 came in 2011; so a big THANK YOU for all of those. Some rivers have done particularly well, such as the Border Esk, the Irish Dee, Argideen, Castletown and Currane, and on others some of the shortfall has been made up with other forms of sampling. We will continue the sampling in 2012.

Sample processing and data analysis

Genetic analysis at University College Cork and Bangor University has been completed to establish a baseline of genetic variation and has shown remarkably strong structuring, with patterns that appear to reflect the ancient glacial history of the Irish Sea. This information will be used to assign marine sea trout to their regions or rivers of origin, in order to learn how they distribute themselves at sea. Scales from the past two years are currently being read and analysed and are being used to derive the ages, spawning history and growth rates of individual fish throughout their lives in rivers and sea. .The bulk of this time-consuming work will be done by summer 2012. Other tasks on sea trout marine feeding, marine distribution modeling and fisheries analysis will be completed during 2012. The other work includes dissecting organs and tissues from 2000+ adult fish, microchemical analysis of the inner ear bones, measuring and weighing 5,000+ fry, and scale reading and analysis of the large historical collection of scales that the CSTP has brought together. So, coupled with the year round sampling, the scientists are fully occupied.

Sampling by anglers in 2012

The prize draw for the champion scale samplers will be held in Carmarthen 21st March 2013, but the CSTP needs the continued support of anglers in 2012. Scales can be taken easily once you have the basic kit which we provide. CSTP project team members are available to present talks to your club if required. Contact us through the CSTP website. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTINUING ASSISTANCE.

On May 14th 2011 The Environment Agency Wales (Northern Area) held a fishing open day for anglers and the public at the United Utilities, Llyn Brenig Visitor Centre. The EA kindly offered the CSTP a stand there to promote the project. Nigel Milner and Nik Tysklind from the Bangor University team spent the day there and we met several anglers who were already involved with the programme and others who expressed interest in helping.

Two anglers who returned scales in 2010 were Dyfed Jones, from Foxon’s Tackle Shop, Ruthin, and Alan Cuthbert, who runs the anglers’ website, Campaign for the Protection of Welsh Fisheries (). We were able to show them the scales from their fish on a projector and how they are read. It was great to see them get absorbed by the life stories of their fish. As experienced anglers they knew all about sea trout migration of course; but for others it was a revelation to learn about the extensive migrations and habitat changes experienced by that the trout living in their local rivers. So, a good day that hopefully will lead to more samples as the project develops.

Last week, on a balmy July evening anglers from the Rossin & Slane District Anglers club hosted a special competition to provide sea trout scale samples for the Celtic Sea trout Project (CSTP). Over 30 anglers fished hard in low water conditions, not only increase awareness amongst members about the project, but also to enjoy some of the lovely pools and runs in the lower reaches of the Boyne sea trout fishery near Oldbridge which the club operates.

On the night Club Chairman Liam Rice said that the club wanted to support the CSTP as much as possible by taking scale samples for the remainder of the season, and, at the same time to encourage club members to enjoy their excellent fishery. The Boyne, a highly regarded salmon fishery, is open for catch-and-release salmon fishing in 2011.  Somewhat less well-known as a sea trout fishery, the Boyne is regarded by the INTERREG 4A funded CSTP as one of the ‘priority’ systems for the CSTP which means it will be subject to detailed investigations of its sea trout populations.  These ‘priority’ catchments were selected by the CSTP project team on the basis of the quality of their sea trout angling and include the Castletown, Slaney, Argideen and Lough Currane fisheries.

Conditions on the night were difficult due to exceptionally low water after a very dry month, and slightly elevated water temperatures meant that activity was a little slow. Six fish were caught on the night – ranging from 10 ozs to 1½ lbs. After the 11 pm finish scores were tallied and Joe Coleman emerged as the winner. Scale samples were taken from all fish by biologist John Finn from Inland Fisheries Ireland who was there to help out and he even managed to assist in sampling by casting a few of his favourite flies.  Further events are planned by the club to assist the CSTP and Liam Rice said that the club would “do all that was possible to provide samples for this very important piece of research. The Boyne deserves to be included as one of the best sea trout fisheries in Ireland and the club will continue to work on improving it.”

Sea trout anglers on the east and south coast of Ireland, the west coasts of Scotland, England and Wales and on the Isle of Man have an excellent chance to win one of the many valuable prizes on offer in a free prize draw by collecting scale samples from any sea trout they catch in 2011. The Celtic Sea Trout Project (CSTP) is incentivising anglers to take samples of scales from any sea trout they catch over the season in specific “priority” rivers.

The priority rivers are:

• Ireland:
  Shimna, Castletown, Dee/Glyde, Boyne, Dargle, Slaney, Colligan, Bandon Argideen, Currane
• Scotland& Isle of Man:
  Luce, Nith, Annan, Esk (Border), Neb, Sulby
• England:
  Esk (Border), Ehen, Lune, Ribble
• Wales:
  Dee, Conwy, Clwyd, Dwyfor, Glaslyn, Dyfi, Teifi, Tywi, Tawe

The prizes are:

• A £500 (€582) tackle voucher prize to the angler submitting the most scalesamples from any CSTP priority river in 2011.
• Three £350 (€407) tackle voucher prizes to each of the three 3 anglers who return the most scales from priority systems in 2011 within each of other three regions: Ireland (inc NI), Scotland and IoM, Wales, or NW England
• Ten £100 (€116)tackle vouchers to be awarded to 10 anglers to be drawn at random from the remaining scale samples submitted. (this includes samples submitted in 2010 and those from non‐priority rivers within the project area)

There are major unanswered questions in the understanding of sea trout, namely:

• where do they go at sea and how are their stocks structured and interlinked?
• what is their marine ecology (feeding, growth, survival and life history variation)?
• what environmental and other pressures are they exposed to?
• how do their life histories (and thus fishery quality) respond to environmental variation?

The CSTP intends to provide this missing knowledge and to translate it into fishery and conservation benefits for countries bordering the Irish Sea.

The scales are important samples for this major research project which commenced in late 2009.  Interpretation of scales from river and marine caught sea trout will contribute much to understanding some of these questions as they will provide very important primary information for analysis of river-specific life histories and growth rates.The scales will also be used for novel studies including genetic analysis (so called genetic finger-printing) to characterise individual river stocks, and for micro-chemical analysis to identify thefreshwater origins of sea trout and, specifically, to determine their marine feeding areas within the Irish Sea, based on specific chemical signatures deposited within the scales.

Scale collection is difficult because, apart from fish traps, of which there are only three across the whole CSTP area, the sampling of adults in rivers has to be done by angling.  This is an extremely important element of the project and anglers are encouraged to participate fully so that sea trout can be better understood which will help to conserve this fascinating migratory trout. Scales from sea trout of all sizes, from the smallest to the largest,over the full extent of the angling season are requested and can be taken easily using the basic scale sampling kit which is provided free of charge (seewww.celticseatrout.com for more details).

The project is part funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Ireland-Wales Programme (INTERREG 4A). The main project partners are Inland Fisheries Ireland, Bangor University, University College Cork and Environment Agency Wales.

The winners will be chosen based on the scale samples submitted to us before 31st March 2012. The prize draw will take place on the 1st of April 2012. Winners will be contacted directly.

To download you copy of the scale sample poster, click here