Quick Question

nollaig

Hi,

Dont know anything about fishing. But just curious.

If a river goes down the by the back of a farmers field, who owns the fishing rights? The farmer??? Or some club? Or who???

ButcherOfNog

As far as I know, due to the fact that the farmer controls access to that stretch thru his lands, he is allowed to fish it, or give permission to people to fish it. A club may still control the fishing on the river tho. If a club is involved then some sort of agreement would normally be in place between the landowners and the club. Otherwise the landowner could just stick up "no tresspassers" signs on his land and that would be an end to the fishing.

I could be completely wrong tho

bpmurray

That was the situation before the government decided we'd be better off with licences. To facilitate the collection of this money, they gave away the fishing rights to whoever asked for them - in a few situations, people set up clubs explicitly for the rights, and then creamed off the money. Fortunately, most of the rights went to legit clubs, although the net effect is that there is very little access for the ordinary Joe Bloggs now.

The landowner does have rights, but does not own the fishing rights.

A very important point is that these fishing rights are exclusively for game fish, i.e. salmon & trout. You are perfectly OK fishing for pike in a stretch of water where the game rights are owned by a club, no matter what they claim! If they start to get stroppy, just call the gardai (who probably have a lot more important things to do).

As for access to the water: I believe there is some law that states that access to any river bank is guaranteed, and cannot be denied, neither by the landowner not by any club which believes its fishing rights also grant it exclusive pedestrian rights.

nollaig

The landowner does have rights, but does not own the fishing rights.

Then, What rights?

If what you are saying is true, it seems very very harsh on the farmer in my opinion. Like could the fishing club stop the farmer from fishing on his own land but the farmer cant stop the fishing club????

Illkillya

He can stop them from walking along the banks, but if they're wading then I suppose they're not trespassing. The farmer doesn't own the river itself.

nollaig

He can stop them from walking along the banks, but if they're wading then I suppose they're not trespassing. The farmer doesn't own the river itself.

Thats grand, I'll tell the ****ers to get off next time I see them so!:D