Flooding hits start to angling season

By: Denis Daly

The unusually heavy rainfall last weekend scuppered the start to the salmon fishing season on the Moy.
A torrent of water came down the river on Sunday, the official start to the season, and made angling impossible.
Earlier, on Friday there was 26.8 mm of rain, followed by 4.6 on Saturday and a whopping 22.7 mm on Sunday, giving a total fall for the three days of about 2 inches.
Those figures were recorded for the Met Office by members of Ballina Golf Club who operate a metering post at the course.
A few locals went out in Ballina, out of a sense of tradition, but only fished for a short time.
In fact the torrent was so bad that the “boxes” at the weirs were clogged with debris washed down river.
One angler remarked there was so much water in the river that any salmon coming up would be in danger of being drowned. It was all very annoying for the local angers because earlier in the week water levels in the river had dropped to a very acceptable level.
“If the salmon angling season had started a week earlier there was a great chance of fish being caught. Now it looks like it is going to be some time before angling can get under way properly,” the angler said.
The river will have to drop considerably before Moy Fishery staff will be able to clear all the branches of trees and other debris from in front of the boxes.

The exceptionally heavy rain on Saturday, and especially Sunday night, caused flooding all over County Mayo and a number of roads were made impassable.
In some areas localised heavy downpours caused very severe flooding of land and of minor roads.
A number of sporting fixtures in the county on Sunday had to be transferred to different venues or cancelled because of water logged pitches.

Source:
Western People
Wednesday, Feb 04, 2004
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