CORACLE fishermen along the River Teifi have pledged to start returning any salmon they catch because of grave concerns about dwindling fish stocks.

The Teifi Coracle Netsmen are now calling on other anglers to follow suit amid mounting concerns over Teifi fish stocks in the wake of a major pollution incident between Tregaron and Lampeter which killed hundreds of salmon, sea trout and brown trout just before Christmas.

Mark Dellar, a licensed coracleman from Cilgerran, said stocks were declining.

“They are definitely not as good as they used to be,” he told the Cambrian News. “It’s due to a combination of pollution in the river as well as predation in the sea where we don’t really know what’s going on out there.”

Mr Dellar added: “My own view is that river pollution is the number one denominator in the fact there’s less fish in the Teifi.

“It kills the micro-organisms fish feed on after they spawn and they are just not surviving to go back to the sea.

“And the salmon which do make it back out there are being caught in the big drift nets of commercial fishermen.

“We are now calling on everyone else to try and do their bit. We feel a voluntary catch and release scheme is preferable to the enforced one NRW is proposing."

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