Sir, - Mr Richard Flynn, IFA Salmon Farming Section in his letter (September 18th) accuses me of claiming in my letter (September 4th) that sea lice live in mud. A re-reading of my letter of that date will show that I did not make such a claim. The dirt referred to in my letter was the general regime of polluted water around the salmon cages.
The main point of my earlier letter viz: that on the east coast, where there is no salmon farming, there is in general a plentitude of sea trout, still stands. Mr Flynn's statement that sea trout are absent in the fish farm-free south-east is not accurate. Sea trout ran in good numbers in the rivers Slaney, Urrin and Boro as in the other rivers in our region during 1998. This can be confirmed by a simple telephone call from your angling correspondent, Mr Derek Evans, to the Chief Officer of the Eastern Regional Fisheries Board. - Yours, etc.,
Paddy Conneff,
Angling Representative Board Member,
The Eastern Regional Fisheries Board,
Thorncliffe Park,
Dublin 14.